


Hic Sunt Dracones

by akathecentimetre



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Temeraire - Naomi Novik
Genre: Alternate Universe - Age of Sail, Alternate Universe - Dragons, Alternate Universe - Napoleonic Wars, Clone Wars, F/M, Gen, Order 66, Temeraire au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-21
Updated: 2016-08-18
Packaged: 2018-04-16 10:52:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 22,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4622610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akathecentimetre/pseuds/akathecentimetre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Captain Watto hadn't expected to find a dragon egg in the hold of his latest prize, and the beast taking a cabin-boy as its captain is - unexpected. The aviators which show up after <i>that</i> are just patently unwanted. (Because good God, what sort of respectable officer in His Majesty's Service wears a <i>beard?</i>)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> _This doesn't have a plot so much as it is just fooling around with the idea of Jedi-captains and their clone-dragons in a Temeraire-verse. FOR MORE DISCUSSION AND FANART OF THIS 'VERSE head over to[this tag](http://akathecentimetre.tumblr.com/tagged/jedi+dragons) at my tumblr._

*

_Late March, 1802; in the southern regions of the English Channel._

Captain Watto had had quite enough of the trouble his latest French prize was giving him.

If the fact that the French frigate had luffed up across their bow during _dinnertime_ of all hours hadn’t been enough, their shooting away his foremast hadn’t been necessary at _all_. Add on top of that the loss of twelve men and several livestock, and his heart condition – which had an unfortunate tendency to leave him short of breath and blue around the gills – and he was really rather fed up.

Then they found the dragon egg in the enemy’s hold, and everything _really_ went to pot.

It took him nearly half an hour of scrabbling through his orders to find the scrap of paper included from the Admiralty that reminded him of a “BRITISH EGG STOLEN FROM EDINBURGH COVERT, NECESSARY TO INSPECT AND RECOVER ALL PRIZES.” It was an odd little (or rather large) thing – a dull cream color not unlike a chicken’s egg, though in the right sorts of lights it looked sky-blue instead. It took six strong hands to haul it out of the Frenchie’s hold and row it across to the HMS _Espa_ , and ten more to hoist it up on deck, it was that heavy, and the height of a full-grown man.

“What’ll we do with it, sir?”

“Buggered if I know,” Watto groused. “If it hatches we’re in a right mess. It’ll have to be harnessed.”

The next morning there was a crack round the top of the egg, near enough as though it was being served as someone’s breakfast, and the chaos that ensued as every spare scrap of leather to be found was hastily sewed into a messy tangle that resembled a badly put-together horse’s bridle was simply deafening.

“Will it be you, sir?”

“Good God, I hope not,” Watto said, though once the possibility had finally been suggested to him it was an alarming enough proposition that his breakfast (cold, blast his useless steward) threatened to reacquaint itself with the wider world. “Officers, form ranks!”

That would give him enough of a buffer, he thought smugly, as his young lieutenants, all pale and trembling-kneed to a man, stood in a makeshift circle around the now-violently shaking egg.

“God, spare us,” one of the lieutenants moaned under his breath. “I’ve barely paid back my commission! I can’t go join the godforsaken _Corps_ – ”

“Shh!” another said sternly, though the effect was rather spoiled by his voice cracking as the egg wobbled and fell with a thud onto its side, splitting open along previously-unseen seams.

Watto thought it was ugly. Keening, still covered in its viscera, the dragon was ungainly and weak-muscled in its first moments, gamboling awkwardly along the slippery deck. It was the same color as its egg – a rich, muddied white, the undersides of its scales and its wings flashing blue.

The harness had been thrust into one of the lieutenants’ unwilling hands, and he took a halting step forward – but the dragon, with a distinct look in its eyes that Watto could have sworn was disgust, ignored the young man and began casting its gaze elsewhere, its big head swaying on its neck.

It pushed through the crowd of hands, which parted nervously before it. It sniffed the air, double lids blinking over its enormous eyes. And then –

And then it hummed with something approaching contentment, and put its muzzle gently into the hands of a shellshocked, open-mouthed powder monkey.

Watto shoved his way through his men, scowling down at the little mop of blond hair and the dragon huffing out a sigh into the boy’s jacket. “Boy,” he barked. “What’s your name?”

The child looked up at him, wide-eyed, unbelieving, ecstatic.

“Anakin, sir,” he gasped. “Anakin Skywalker.”

*

**TBC**

*


	2. Chapter 2

*

It took two days of tacking northward against a contrary wind before the _Espa_ managed to make contact with a cutter which hared away faster towards the Channel Fleet than they ever could with their news. Anakin, though, was so preoccupied as to not notice when the ship changed course, or even the leering of his sometimes-disdainful, sometimes-jealous crewmates; he was only a powder monkey, after all, the sport and gleeful target of the able seamen in any circumstance, and so to be left alone with his dragon was a blessed relief.

 _His_ dragon. It still amazed him. He wasn’t a particularly strong or notable boy, though he had enough unexpected skill with various acts of petty seamanship that he’d caught the Captain’s eye and received the dubious honor of being told he’d be a fine master’s mate someday (a high achievement to be sure for a fatherless boy from the docks of London, but not necessarily something to look _forward_ to). He was small, skinny, mop-haired and usually dirty, and sometimes struggled to lift the wooden cylinders of powder and shot that he and his fellow scrawny cabin boys had to rush to the guns whenever the decks were cleared for action. And yet here he was, with a great white-blue head in his lap as the dragon slept, and able to order the crew to slaughter him a bullock whenever his new partner wanted it.

And good lord, but the dragon ate. Prodigiously, and violently, and with a sort of smug satisfaction which had had Anakin giggling behind his hands the first time; that had earned him a cuff on the ear from the sour-faced purser, who didn’t find anything funny in the idea of a great, winged beast of burden massacring its way through the ship’s stores, and at the whim of a nine-year-old at that.

“Was’is name, boy?” one of the able seaman had called down once, as the curious and mostly-idle hands peered down into the hold and watched the dragon take its fill.

“Rex,” Anakin called back, and the dragon let out a little hum of approval.

“A royal name,” one of the lieutenants scoffed, clearly recovered from his ordeal of nearly becoming the dragon’s rider himself. “For a dog!”

Rex reared up instantly, snarling, and the crew laughed as the lieutenant took a startled, flustered leap backwards – not that the rest of them had been any braver.

“Do not worry,” the dragon said later, when they were back in the for’ard cabin which had been cleared out for them and Anakin was nearly asleep. “I like my name.”

Anakin stared, astonished. “You _talk?_ ”

“But of course I do,” the dragon smiled. “I learned while I was still in my egg. Though I also heard a lot of French. Blasted strange language, if you ask me.”

Anakin crept closer, wide-eyed. “What’s it like, being in an egg?”

“Warm,” Rex said, with a little chuckle. “Come here.”

Anakin found himself wrapped up under a wing – it was indeed very warm under the membranes running through Rex’s wing. “Tell me,” the dragon said. “Why do they mistreat you?”

“I’m just a boy. It’s men that sail this ship. I run for powder.”

“Hm. I do not like the idea of anyone ordering you about.”

“They shan’t anymore,” Anakin said softly, running a hand along one of Rex’s glittering scales. “Now that I’ve got you, they’ll take us to England, and we’ll fight in battles.”

“I like the sound of that,” Rex huffed, teeth happily bared in the dim light.

In the morning, they were within sight of the Blue Admiral’s flagship; there was a dragon transport there, too, with its massive quarterdeck jutting out over the ocean waiting to receive guests. Signals were flying back and forth between the _Espa_ and the fleet as Anakin (skipping) and Rex (waddling slightly) made their way up on deck; reading them through his telescope, Captain Watto made an interesting, thoughtful noise, and then looked peevishly at Anakin.

“All right there, boy?”

“Yes, sir. Sir? What’s to happen to us, sir?”

“I suspect they’ll know,” Watto said, and pointed up at the sky.

There were dragons there, Anakin saw with a gasp – one was long and thin and had huge, gliding wings, patterned blue and orange, a long neck snaking off into the sky. The other was –

“Why, it looks like me,” Rex rumbled, sounding excited, and it was true – the dragon that swooped down above the _Espa_ was of the exact same build as Rex, and the same off-white color, though this one’s scales shone a golden-yellow, rather than blue.

And they were both _massive_. War harnesses wrapped around their legs and tails, and both dragons seemed to have crews of at least forty men packed in around their backs, bristling with weapons and amenities of all stripes – muskets, swivel cannons, crew quarters. Anakin caught a glimpse of Watto looking uneasily at Rex, as though hoping for dear life that the dragon would be removed from his presence before it, too, grew to be a hundred and fifty feet long.

Both dragons landed precisely and quickly on the dragon transport’s deck; there was a flurry of activity as their crews dismounted, and then, within moments, a jolly boat was launching towards the _Espa_ , crewed by six rowers in navy garb and, in the stern, a cluster of bottle-green officers’ uniforms, clearly the arriving aviators.

“Captains coming off, sir!” one of the lieutenants called, looking through his glass.

“Captains, my arse,” someone muttered further down the deck. “Them’s aviators ain’t nothing but ingrates.”

“Quiet,” Watto bellowed down. “No muttering on deck! Sideboys, lively now!”

“They’re gonna eat you alive, boy!” someone else called out gleefully; one of the lieutenants, catching the thunderous look on Watto’s face, took the initiative and plunged into the mass of men to catch the culprit, though not before Rex, frowning, had wrapped himself around Anakin and started hissing.

“Ahoy, _Espa!_ ” came a distant shout; it was the coxswain of the jollyboat, which had just come within range to be heard. “Peace! It’s peace, Captain! We’re at _peace!_ ”

*

**TBC**

*


	3. Chapter 3

*

In the hullabaloo which greeted the coxswain’s announcement, the aviators went almost unnoticed as they clambered aboard. The entire crew packed the deck, whooping and shouting – even Anakin stood amazed, struck dumb by the idea that Emperor Boney, who had been England’s bogeyman since before he was born, could possibly have struck a bargain.

“Quiet on deck, there!” Watto bellowed, though from the pinkish hue in his flabby face Anakin could tell the captain was pleased. “Lieutenants! Some order, if you please!”

The crowd, laughing and clapping ( _Home_ , some of them shouted – _WIVES!_ shouted others), dispersed a little – and suddenly, there they were, a whole group of them, two captains and six little adolescents clustered close, all in bright white breeches and bottle-green coats, their bicornes and officers’ gloves immaculate.

“Good God,” Watto murmured as Rex snaked his head curiously forward – and it was then that Anakin saw what a majority of the crew was starting to see, too, and why the chorus of celebration was dying down into a confused, disgusted muttering.

The little midshipmen, and one of the captains, were all women.

“Well, well,” called the male captain, and as one, the aviators started towards the quarterdeck, clearing astonished seamen out of their way. “What have we here?”

“Hmm,” Rex rumbled, and Anakin pressed close to him, putting a hand on his long snout.

The red-headed captain ran lightly up the stairs and presented himself to Watto with a knuckled salute and short bow. “Come aboard, sir,” he said respectfully, eyes twinkling with mirth. He was almost a small man, slim and aristocratic, and Anakin had no doubt that he knew well how to wield the polished officer’s sword he bore at his side. In fact, Anakin rather liked him, on sight – and even more, he realized, when he figured out that the reason why the ship’s lieutenants were muttering in a scandalized way below them was because the new arrival wore a _beard_.

Though, granted, that could have been almost entirely due to the other Captain’s arrival. She was beautiful in her uniform, which was buttoned up severely (to the no small advantage of her figure); her blonde hair was spilling out of her queue, and she looked haughtily down on Watto as though she had never in her life expected to be so close to a creature of his description.

The midshipmen – midshipwomen? Midgirls? Anakin’s head was starting to hurt – were a rabble of neatly-pressed, beady-eyed brunettes, with barely a thing to distinguish between them besides an extra curl in their hair or a slight difference in the shape of their noses, perhaps all twelve or thirteen years old. They all gasped as one as they caught sight of Rex, and immediately raced over to the dragon’s side, showering him with petting and delighted coos.

“Oh, he’s _perfect._ ”

“Bit skinny. Have they been feeding you Navy rations, you poor thing?”

Only one of the girls hung back, and looked Anakin carefully up and down. “Hmm,” she said.

“Why, it isn’t even harnessed,” the female captain said, her eyebrows rising.

“I’m sure Captain Watto did his best under the circumstances, Captain Kryze,” the red-haired captain said, and then he crouched down at Rex’s side, looking, not unkindly, at Anakin. “What’s your name then, boy?”

“Anakin, sir. Anakin Skywalker.”

“Well, Captain Skywalker,” the aviator said in reply – Anakin heard one of the girls scoff, though why he didn’t know – “I am Obi-Wan Kenobi, Captain of His Majesty’s Dragon Constantinus. What say we get you and your dragon back to England?”

“England!” Rex sighed, tearing himself away for a moment from the determined love he was getting under the girls’ hands. “Is it very far?”

“Far enough,” Kenobi said thoughtfully, standing after a moment and rubbing at his beard. “We shall have to take you both aloft with us, I suppose, since I doubt you’ve started flying yet.”

“Well _we’re_ not carrying him,” one of the girls said rudely, soundly unfairly petulant.

“That’s enough of that, Midwingman Yané,” the blonde captain said sharply. “Introduce yourselves to your new – friend.”

“Midwingman Sabé.”

“Midwingman Rabé.”

“Midwingman Eirtaé.”

“Midwingman Saché.”

“Midwingman Yané.”

“Fourth Lieutenant Amidala,” the last one said, the one who had been looking at Anakin so carefully.

Anakin blinked back and forth between them. “Those names sound French,” he said finally, weakly.

Kenobi burst out laughing, and ruffled Anakin’s hair quickly. “The boy has some brains, after all! Well,” he added, looking appreciatively at Rex, “get your dunnage, then, and we’ll be off. Look lively, now.”

It took Anakin less than five minutes to race down two decks, gather what meagre possessions he had from his hammock – a second pair of ragged shoes, a whalebone token from his mother, a couple of torn jackets and pairs of trousers – and hurry back up again, puffing and red-faced, with his sack on his back. By that time, the second captain – Captain Kryze, was it? – and the midwingmen were supervising the lifting of Rex off of the _Espa_ and down into the jollyboat using a rope sling – a development which was no doubt necessary, but which Rex didn’t look at all happy about.

It was midday, and hot, by the time the jollyboat pushed off from _Espa_ ’s side – and, curled protectively around each other in the bows, being looked at suspiciously by the rowers and being completely ignored by the girls, Anakin found himself unexpectedly exhausted as the only home he’d known for two years slipped away.

“Sleep, little one,” Rex huffed, nosing at Anakin’s cheek. “I’ll keep watch for us.”

“I don’t – ” Anakin’s protest cut itself off in a mighty yawn, and he could only mumble out his annoyance as he curled into Rex’s side.

As though from very far away, he thought he heard his name – heard himself being talked about.

“It’ll need to be harnessed,” Captain Kryze was saying. “The boy seems to have a very strong bond with it already, to be sure, but we can’t risk another feral incident."

“All in good time, Satine,” Captain Kenobi said calmly. “He’ll be the youngest Captain the Corps has had in decades. And with this peace, we can afford to take our time to train them both cautiously, and properly.”

“This _peace_ won’t last,” Kryze responded. “You don’t believe in it any more than I do – if anything, Napoleon just needed some time with which to make new plans. And the boy will have few friends when he arrives – the girls are already insanely jealous that their chance at an egg has been usurped, and I doubt any of the other young officers will take kindly to it either.”

“Then we will remind them of their place,” Kenobi said, a hint of ice in his tone. “I will not have him hounded. We’re damned lucky even to have recovered the dragon.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” Kryze said, after a pause; opening his heavy eyes ever so slightly, Anakin caught sight of Captain Kryze’s hand reaching out for Kenobi’s in apology.

Head whirling, he shoved himself further into Rex’s scales, and promptly fell soundly asleep.

*

**TBC**

*


	4. Chapter 4

*

When Anakin woke, he was momentarily disoriented – it was dark, and cool, and as he rubbed his eyes clear of sleep he could feel wind rushing through his hair. He was wrapped up in a blanket and awkwardly, but snugly cocooned up against something warm; as he struggled to right himself, he stood on sagging canvas which seemed to be lashed together with rope.

He forced his head out through a flap in said canvas – and instantly shrank back again with a squeak of shock.

He was _in the air._

A second, much more cautious look confirmed that he was not, in fact, dreaming. There were clouds rushing along below him, tinged faintly pink with a rising dawn; above and in front of him, massive wings beat lazily and slowly through the air. The warmth he had been sleeping next to was, in fact, the bulk of the gold-white dragon he’d seen land on the transport the previous day.

As he stared, flabbergasted, down at the clouds – through which he could see no sign of land or water – there was a faint scrabbling sound above, and then Rex’s head, blue and bright and grinning, popped down towards him.

“Anakin!” the dragon called excitedly. “Do come up and see. It’s _wonderful._ ”

Gingerly, Anakin placed his feet in the rope slings and ladders which seemed to be made for just such a purpose, and climbed out of the shelter. As his eyes had adjusted, he had realized he was not alone – there were other shapes curled up asleep there, most full-grown men, some of whom grumbled and turned over as Anakin stepped nervously across them. Hanging on for dear life, it took him a few more minutes than he suspected was normal for aviators to rappel his way up the dragon’s side – but when he did, and he joined Rex at the juncture between their bearer’s back and neck, it was worth it.

“Wizard,” he whispered, staring wide-eyed out across the sky.

“Not bad, is it, lad?” said a deep voice; there was a crew member sitting with Rex in a big green greatcoat, a massive, muscle-bound man with a scarred face and a generally-ferocious, though not unkind, expression. “Get yourself over here so I can rig you up.”

His huge hands quickly fastened a sort of leather belt around Anakin’s waist – attached to a hooked strap, it could secure him wherever he chose along the dragon’s bulky war harness. “There. Don’t want you falling to your death on your first day, now do we?”

“Thank you, sir.”

“You don’t call me sir,” the man said, raising an eyebrow. “You’re a captain now, boy. Best get used to it. I’m Mr. Alwin, Chief Groundsman for Cody here.”

“My _name_ ,” came a deep, rumbling voice, “is Constantinus.”

“Aye,” Alwin said calmly. “It’s a bit long.”

The dragon’s huge head swung sideways while his wings kept them gliding straight on. It had deep, warm brown eyes, quite like Rex’s, which regarded Anakin thoughtfully.

“Hmm,” it said. “You’re very small. But I suppose you shall grow, along with Regulus here.”

“Cody seems to think my name needs lengthening,” Rex sniggered.

“Rex will never do for the official lists,” Cody said archly, as his head swung back out away from them. “Though it is acceptable for everyday use.”

“Don’t mind him,” Alwin said. “We hadn’t expected to be flying out so soon after our last action, and he’s a little tired.”

“Tired,” Cody snorted, and then he yawned, ostentatiously, showing off rows of sharp teeth with Anakin leaned sideways to stare at. “I’m _exhausted_.”

There was a wound on the other side of Cody’s face, Anakin saw – a long, ugly, pitted thing, only halfway through healing. “What did that, Cod – er, Constantinus?” he asked. “Was it a battle?”

“Of sorts,” Alwin said, shifting forward where he sat. “A nasty feral who delighted in tormenting English and French alike. We lost many a fine captain to Maul.”

“Aye, but we downed him in the end,” Cody said, his growl vibrating all the way down his neck, fiercely.

“So we did,” said a yawning, pleasant voice, and Anakin turned awkwardly round in his straps to find Captain Kenobi making his way towards them from a second shelter further down the dragon’s back, shrugging his uniform coat on over his shoulders. “All quiet, Mr. Alwin?”

“Yes, sir. Just introducing the lad to his ride,” Alwin said, with a wink in Anakin’s direction.

“Very good, very good,” Kenobi said; he walked steadily out along Cody’s neck, and when he reached the great head, leaned down to give his dragon a firm, affectionate pat on the cheek. “Not too tired, my dear?”

“Not at all,” Cody said, clearly pleased at the attention he was receiving from his captain. “I suspect we’ll arrive before evening.”

“Ask Mr. Boyle to signal across to Mandalore, Mr. Alwin,” Kenobi called as he balanced his way back to safer ground, with Anakin watching his every step open-mouthed. “Report on our position, and then tighten formation once we’re over land.”

“Aye aye, sir,” Alwin said, and, knuckling his forehead, clambered off down Cody’s scales; looking through the mist and cloud-fog beyond him, Anakin could see the shape of the other dragon swooping through the air not far from them, its scales shining blue and orange (and Anakin fancied he could see a little cluster of midwingmen-shaped forms on its back). It looked so different from either Cody or Rex, its wings and tail both long and spindly.

“Mandalore is a _Longwing_ ,” Rex said, as he scuttled to Anakin’s side and also stared out. “They only allow themselves to be captained by women, you see. And they spit acid, so they’re very valuable. But Cody says that someday _I’m_ going to start breathing _fire!_ ”

“Let’s just hope you learn how to do it before war breaks out again,” Kenobi said – he was watching them both with an amused, fond expression, his arms crossed over his chest (and his waist, Anakin finally saw with a sort of a relief, finally fastened down to Cody’s harness by his own tether). “You won’t be much use to us without much growth and training, little one.”

“Yes, sir,” Rex said respectfully, though Anakin could tell he was miffed at the mere suggestion that he’d be a burden.

“Where are we going, sir?” Anakin asked, his curiosity overwhelming his tact as was usual.

“Scotland,” Kenobi said, and then he grinned, as though over some private, alarming joke. “God help us all.”

*

**TBC**

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _A/N: 'Alwin' is Alpha, if it wasn't obvious!_


	5. Chapter 5

*

In the end, it turned out that life on dragonback wasn’t so different from life on board ship. As the day wore on and the sky brightened, burning off the cloud – Anakin gaped to see the dotted fields and houses speckled so far below, while Rex struck up an animated discussion with Mr. Alwin about the meal he could expect once they reached their destination – various officers and crewmembers emerged in different watches from their sleeping shelters and kept the war harness shipshape. There was even a galley of sorts, though the conscripted cook (a boy not much older than Anakin, who looked as though he’d prefer an outright punishment) couldn’t serve much besides cold salt beef and biscuit – again, much like Anakin was used to.

Finally, at two bells in the dogwatch (they kept time in one of the shelters, carefully matching sandglasses), Cody tilted his nose downwards and stilled his wings, and, with Mandalore following closely behind, they swooped down over wet green fields and craggy hilltops. Anakin had completely lost track of where they were; when he asked, Captain Kenobi just waved a hand and laughed something about the ‘back end of nowhere, Near Edinburgh’ – so he sat down next to Rex instead, clutching hard at Cody’s scales as the wind picked up and whistled over them.

They plummeted over one hill, and then Cody beat his wings strongly to swoop over another – and when they rose over that next one, the covert was suddenly spread out before them. Acres and acres of fields in which livestock were grazing – Rex perked up instantly at the sight of them – enclosures and cabins where dragons slept and their harnesses were stored, an achingly brilliant sky in which a flock of four gigantic beasts were turning in precise formation practice. And in the middle of it all, there was a rambling, ramshackle castle, equipped with stables, semaphore and barracks; it looked in parts like it was half falling-down, but there were aviators spilling out of it nonetheless, clearly ready to welcome them back. The noise, even from above, was incredible – a cacophony of roaring, boisterous shouting, and complaining that sent Anakin’s eyes wide.

Mandalore had gained on Cody while Anakin was busy staring, and settled down to land first; the Longwing was instantly surrounded by her groundcrew, her aviators tumbling off of her back while they set about carefully removing her harness. Cody detoured slightly to an enclosure a few hundred feet or so from the gates into the castle’s forecourt, settling with an almighty thump and a sigh into the churned-up grass.

“There you are, my dear,” Kenobi said, sliding jauntily down to earth and then turning back to hold out his arms for Anakin, into which the boy promptly jumped down. “You’ve earned your rest.”

“Aye,” Cody said. “But not quite yet.”

“Hm? Ah!” Kenobi said grandly, as he turned back to the castle. “Look alive, Captain Skywalker. Your commanding officer approaches.”

Anakin peered around Kenobi and saw a very small dragon stumping its way towards them. It was barely taller than the Captain, in fact, and was dwarfed by Mr. Alwin – and yet Anakin thought he must be very, very old, for his scaly green skin was so wrinkled that it drooped in folds and sags from his neck and legs; his wings were shriveled and shapeless on his back. But he had a friendly face, for all that, and bright black eyes that looked at Anakin and Rex (who had scrabbled his way to earth by that time) with great interest.

“So,” he said, in a rusty, kindly voice. “Found our wayward egg, you did. And a captain to go with it, hmm?”

“Aye, sir,” Kenobi said politely. “Captain Anakin Skywalker and His Majesty’s Dragon Regulus are at your disposal. Captain Skywalker – may I present Admiral Yoda.”

“Fine names indeed,” the dragon nodded.

Anakin stared. “ _You’re_ an _admiral_?”

“A strange thing, is it not,” Yoda said, with a degree of amusement that told Anakin he must have been asked that question many times over. “And yet true, it is. You are welcome here, young Skywalker,” he continued, his wings rustling, “so long as your duty to your King and Country, you fulfill. Captain Kenobi, train you well, he will.”

“Thank you, sir,” Kenobi said, with a brief bow.

“And now walk with me you will, Captain Kenobi,” Yoda said, and there was something sad and tired in the dragon’s face of a sudden. “Ended the war may be for the time being, but an unpleasant task before us still lies.”

“Ah,” Kenobi said, and then he looked sideways at Anakin, lines of concern creeping into his face. “Do me the honor of remaining here with Cody, Captain Skywalker,” he said, lightly, belying his expression. “I shall be back shortly.”

Anakin watched the Captain walk away by Yoda’s waddling side. When he turned back to the enclosure, he saw that Cody had been fully divested of his harness, which was now being bundled away and cleaned by groundsmen, and in another corner, Rex was happily indulging in a meaty meal courtesy of another clutch of more casually-uniformed men, all of whom were laughing fondly at the speed with which the hatchling was devouring his side of beef.

“Admiral Yoda is very old,” Cody said to Anakin, probably sensing his curiosity; the big dragon had settled down on his haunches and forelegs, and was looking away after his Captain. “Winchester dragons, like he is, are often small and sometimes silly, and make good couriers. But he was always different. They _say_ ,” the golden dragon went on, leaning his huge snout close down to Anakin, “that he came out of his egg able to quote Cicero.”

“Wizard,” Anakin said, too confused to say anything else. “What are they off to do now?”

To his surprise, Cody hunched downwards a little, as though he’d asked something very hurtful. “It’s a terrible thing,” he said, more quietly. “One of our captains has been sentenced to death for mutiny. He had planned to go and join Bonaparte, you see.”

“Is that so bad?” Anakin asked curiously. “I saw a man hanged once. He’d struck his lieutenant and they put him up the yardarm.”

“Oh, but it is bad,” Cody said earnestly. “It is very bad for the Aerial Corps. We are so short on dragons that we cannot spare any – and besides, Captain Krell acted on his own, but his dragon shall suffer for it when they hang him. Remember this, Regulus,” he said sternly, turning to Rex, who, with a very full belly, had struggled his way back over to Anakin, sleepy-eyed. “You will love your Captain more than anything in this world, as I do. It’s why it’s so dangerous for any of us to be captured by the enemy – they will keep your captain alive just to control you, and to make you breed or fight for them.”

“I would never let Anakin be captured,” Rex said indignantly, though Anakin could tell that the idea had frightened him; he curled a wing and his tail around Anakin’s side and legs and wrapped in close. “Is it – is it so very bad?” he asked, more hesitantly.

The answer came a moment later – though there was obviously no sound of a scaffold from across the maze of fields, there was no mistaking the bellowing, keening, agonizing howl of a dragon in agony. Cody and Rex both shuddered; all around them, Anakin could see and hear other dragons in their enclosures huddling away from the unending sound.

“Poor Dogma,” Cody rumbled. “They’ll send him to the breeding grounds, but that is no easy life.”

Kenobi returned not long afterwards, pale-faced and drooping, when Rex was nearly asleep; Cody roused when he saw him, reached out with a long-taloned hand, and grabbed his captain close.

“It’s all right, my dear,” Anakin heard him sigh from within the cocoon of Cody’s arms. “It’s going to be all right.”

“Come,” he said, when he finally emerged again – Cody looked much better for having seen him, and had settled down on all fours, a bit like a dog, clearly to prepare to go to sleep. “Rex can spend the night here, while you and I go up to the castle.

“You’ll need a good night’s sleep, after all,” he continued, clapping Anakin on the shoulder as they started off. “We have a _great_ deal to do tomorrow…”

*

**TBC**

*


	6. Chapter 6

*

Anakin slept in a dormitory which bustled with dozens of teenagers, hungry young commissioned officers all, who looked at him as though he were the worst sort of intruder. He didn’t mind it, in fact – not when he was dead tired and more than used to being ignored or unwanted, and so he slept soundly. He was woken by a bell ringing the start of the forenoon watch, and got dressed in his ragged navy garb just in time for Captain Kenobi to poke his head around the door and beckon him out.

“We’ll have to get you fitted up in Edinburgh as soon as possible,” he said, looking doubtfully down at Anakin’s clothes. “Though I suppose you’ll outgrow them within a couple of months, at your age. No matter,” he said, more cheerfully. “Come – Cody and Rex have already gotten started, so I’ve gotten some formation practice ready for you.”

What Anakin had hoped would be his first flying lesson turned out to be exactly the opposite. In the chilly sunlight, Cody was nudging Rex around one of the outer fields, encouraging him to flap his still underdeveloped wings; Anakin, meanwhile, was sat down at a table outside one of the storage huts and handed a veritable pile of books, all about the (apparently) delicate science of airborne battle tactics. It was fiendishly boring, and Captain Kenobi’s long, complicated explanations did little to help with Anakin’s growing confusion.

“But why must the Longwings always be at the center of the formation?”

“They are the most valuable,” Kenobi replied, tapping at an illustration in one of the books which depicted the gory outcome of a Longwing’s acidic attack. “Or at least, they are at the moment. Both we and the French have firebreathers, now – they pulled ahead with the Flamme-de-Gloire, but now that we’ve bred up our new Pyrophite Albions we can fight back on that front – and they’re still desperate to kill or capture Longwings. Not only that, they’re smaller than the Albions or the Regal Coppers, and so need stronger protection.”

“Is that what Rex and Cody are? Pyrophite Albions?”

“Indeed. They are the greatest triumph ever to emerge from the British breeding grounds,” Kenobi said, beaming over towards where Rex, flapping madly, had managed to lift off about ten feet from the ground, lurching about in a highly ungainly fashion. “And of course we’ve been quite desperate to make sure their bloodlines remain secret, which is why it was such a disaster when Krell arranged to have Rex’s egg stolen.”

There was a snapping snarl behind them, and they turned to see that Rex, clearly fed up with being managed and shoved off the ground, had jumped onto Cody and was playfully skittering up and down the bigger dragon’s back.

“Really, Regulus,” Cody huffed. “This is hardly behavior befitting a dragon in his majesty’s service.”

“Don’t mind him,” Kenobi chuckled to Anakin. “All dragonets have early high spirits. And Cody’s a big old nanny of a thing,” he added, raising his voice. Cody sniffed mightily and turned his head away, dignity personified.

Kenobi eventually gave up on drumming further information into Anakin’s aching head in the early afternoon. For all his prodding, Anakin liked the Captain very much, and thanked his lucky stars for having ended up under his (at least temporary) command – he’d sailed under far worse, after all. For all of Anakin’s thick-headedness, Kenobi was patient and kind, and occasionally humorous; Anakin couldn’t help but wonder how it was he’d ended up in the Corps rather than the Army, or as a politician.

When he asked the question, Kenobi seemed surprised by his forwardness, but he took it seriously nonetheless. “Let me ask you, Anakin – what, in the bosom of His Majesty’s Navy, had you ever heard of the Aerial Corps before you came here?”

“Er,” Anakin stammered, a blush rising into his cheeks. “That all aviators were – um – ”

“Yes?” Kenobi’s eyes were twinkling. “Spit it out, boy.”

“That they were all either bastard sons and daughters no-one wanted, or fallen actresses, or sod – sodomites?” Anakin said weakly, tripping over the last word. (He didn’t even really know what it meant – only that the Navy’s punishment for being one was death.)

Kenobi threw back his head and practically roared with laughter. “Yes, I imagined as much,” he said finally, still giggling. “Well, you _will_ find a fair number of fifth or sixth sons of the nobility here – which explains myself,” he said, gesturing expansively, with a sarcastic flip of his wrist. “There are only so many commissions for the Army or Navy a petty aristocrat can afford these days, after all. As for our women captains – well, where they come from is no-one’s concern. They’re damned fine officers, and that’s all that matters. And the children – things happen in the natural course of things, as you might expect. Most of the young men and women here come in from outside the Corps, however. It’s only the Longwing captains who sometimes hope to have a daughter, so they can take on the dragon once their first captain passes – Longwings are incredibly long-lived, if they do not die in battle. Captain Kryze’s mother flew with Mandalore before her, and her grandmother before that, if I’m not mistaken.”

“Is Lieutenant Amidala her daughter?” Anakin asked, remembering the similarity of expression between the blonde captain and her suspicious, clever-looking subordinate.

“No,” Kenobi said, raising one eyebrow. “Captain Kryze has no children as yet.”

“I heard my name,” called a familiar voice, then, and with a ground-shaking thud, Mandalore landed not twenty feet from them, her long neck lifted proudly. To Anakin’s surprise, Captain Kryze was alone on her back, and she wasn’t wearing any harness. “Are you going to sit there and lecture the boy all day, Kenobi, or shall we show him what flying’s all about?”

“Capital idea,” Kenobi shouted back. He promptly got up and beckoned to Anakin, who followed him, tripping, over to Cody; it was the work of but a moment to get Anakin, Rex, and Kenobi himself hoisted up onto his back, and then, with a great leap – Anakin yelped and fell flat, digging his hands into folds of Cody’s flexing skin – they were airborne and barreling after Mandalore, who was waiting for them above, executing slow, lazy loops.

Mandalore was much smaller than Cody, and therefore nimbler – she found it easy to duck and swerve out of Cody’s way as they charged each other, but Cody’s power and speed made it equally easy for him to keep up. It took Anakin only a few moments to recognize (even lying on his face) that they were performing a very intricate, complicated dance. If this was the dragons at play, the sight of them in battle was likely to be extraordinary.

And every time they were even slightly stable and flying in a straight line, Kenobi and Kryze both were on their feet, running back and forth along the length of their dragons with no hesitation or fear whatsoever. Anakin, breathless, tried to get up once and immediately dropped back down again, petrified; it was only when Kenobi himself hauled him upright and walked steadily with him along Cody’s neck, firmly grasping both of Anakin’s hands, that he started to find his balance, and even then it felt extremely precarious.

“Oh,” Rex sighed, eventually, lifting his head up and sniffing at the wind. “I wish I could do this!”

Kenobi grinned, and Anakin’s stomach dropped.

“Well,” Cody rumbled loudly, “why don’t you?”

Kenobi pulled Anakin down so they were both clutching at Cody’s neck; beneath them, the dragon pitched and rolled and suddenly turned upside down, and just like that, with a frantic squawk, Rex was falling towards the earth.

“What are you doing?” Anakin shrieked, panicked.

“Look!” Kenobi called back, pointing – to his immense relief, Anakin saw that Rex had splayed his little wings out, and then he started flapping them and he was – awkwardly, badly, but undeniably – flying, and happily screeching with it to boot.

“Well, bugger me,” Anakin gasped.

“Language,” Cody hummed. Kenobi, once again, burst out laughing.

*

**TBC**

*


	7. Chapter 7

*

It wasn’t long before Anakin found himself so busy in the covert that he scarcely had time to eat or sleep, let alone worry about his social circumstances. His days settled into a packed routine of lessons with Captain Kenobi in the morning which started fiendishly early – the Captain seemed little bothered by the chill and darkness of the hour, and pressed Anakin to take a little coffee or tea while he yawned over his books – in the meantime, Rex would eat, devouring his way through a whole herd of cattle in a week, before being hauled off by Constantinus to continue strengthening his wings. Rex was eating so much, in fact, that he started to grow at a prodigious rate; Anakin could swear that by the end of every day he was at least a foot longer than he had been at dawn.

It was the afternoons Anakin longed for, now, when, after bolting down a meal from the castle mess, Rex would come scuttling wide-eyed and happy over to him, and he would clamber up onto his dragon’s knobbly shoulders, and they would fly. It was difficult in the first few days, as Rex was still struggling to handle the burden of any weight on his back at all, let alone that of a growing ten-year-old; but as the dragon continued to grow himself, it wasn’t long at all before they were able to sweep in long, skittering loops above the castle, with Kenobi and Cody either shouting instructions to them from the ground or gliding majestically alongside.

Anakin loved it, more than he had ever loved climbing high up into the sails and stays above _Espa_ , and at the time _that_ had been extraordinary. He loved the rush of air in his wind and hair, the speed and danger of it, the power in the explosive, ragged flaps of Rex’s wings. And he could tell that Rex, chattering and sarcastic and laughter-filled as he was becoming, loved it too. It was always a wrench for them to come down, a groaning moment of disappointment when Rex realized he was tiring and had to stop; even the smiles and congratulations of their teachers was small consolation for the fact of having to return to the ground.

After two weeks of mostly-solitary instruction, Kenobi pulled Anakin out of his bed even earlier than usual one morning and, in a dress uniform so neat and clean that the bars on his shoulders sparkled, told Anakin to take extra care in making himself presentable, “For the tailors in Edinburgh won’t think much of your face as it is, young man.” One of the carriages kept by the Corps’ officers was waiting for them at the castle’s gates, and the horses which pulled it drew them swiftly off towards town through the hills, no doubt eager to put a decent amount of space between them and all of the hungry beasts in the covert.

There followed a blizzard of measuring, pinning, sewing and adjusting that took nearly two hours in Captain Kenobi’s favored tailor, who took an unusual amount of pride in being a friend to the Aerial Corps – and even though Anakin blushed happily at the sight of himself in the same bright green coat, white trousers, and tall boots as his benefactor, with the tail ends of his ragged hair wrapped back in a neat queue, it wasn’t stopping the sinking feeling he’d had in his stomach all morning.

“But sir,” he whispered finally, as the tailor bustled away after some more thread, “sir, I can’t afford – what I mean to say is – ”

“They’ve got you on peacetime half-officer’s pay, haven’t they told you?” Kenobi said with a frown as he reached forward and tugged the captain’s coat more firmly down onto Anakin’s shoulders, brushing away nonexistent specks of dirt. “You should speak to treasurer about it when we return. But you’re right that that would hardly cover the cost of a full set of dress and everyday uniforms, so we’ll discuss your terms of repayment to me at a later date.”

“Sir?” Anakin babbled weakly.

“Hush, now,” Kenobi said as the tailor returned; his smile was warm, and one which, Anakin thought, was the first he’d been given that acknowledged the strangeness of Anakin’s situation. “We are glad to have you with us, Captain Skywalker, and that is enough.”

It seemed that the problem of Anakin’s isolation was soon to be solved, too, for when they returned to the covert that evening and Anakin had finished packing away his new things in the trunk which had been left at his bedside – simply monogrammed with a dark stamp of “A.S.”, and no doubt also Captain Kenobi’s doing – the little midwingmen of Mandalore came running up to him in the mess at dinner and wasted no time in inspecting him inch by inch.

“Very good, very good indeed,” said one of them – Rabé, or was it Saché? – as she tugged at his captain’s bars. “It was about time Kenobi took you in hand.”

“He’s good at taking a lot of things in hand,” another of them sniggered, and to his astonishment Anakin found himself sitting in the midst of them as they chattered and ate, for all the world as though he’d been their friend for years. They were as rude and loud and cheerful as anyone he’d ever met in the Navy, and their age seemed to have no effect on their treating him both as their superior and as someone very able to be mocked.

“I’ve seen you training,” the oldest of them said – Padme, whom Anakin could very clearly see took her rank as lieutenant seriously. She was beautiful, too, he thought shyly, as she smiled at him over her wine. “You’re doing well, and Regulus is a fine dragon.”

“Rex,” Anakin corrected automatically, and felt like apologizing even though she didn’t seem to take offence. “I do so enjoy flying. How long have you been with Mandalore?”

“Five years,” she said, leaning forward eagerly as though recognizing a fellow flier-at-heart, and just like that, they were off.

*

**TBC**

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick one this week! Much more to come...


	8. Chapter 8

*

_May, 1803 – fourteen months after the discovery of HMD Regulus by HMS Espa_

London was wet and damp in the late spring, and Anakin wasn’t enjoying it at all. Oh, he was enjoying seeing parts of London he’d never seen as a boy, even though he’d lived in it, to be sure – the Mall and the Strand proved excellently diverting for a young man in uniform with his carefully-saved pay to spend – but he had been away from his dragon for two weeks, now, and he was desperate to be flying again, damn Boney and his slow, mysterious machinations.

He was sure Captain Kenobi felt the same, but that hadn’t stopped his superior from dragging them to yet another interminable evening of cards and dancing at the nearest Assembly Rooms, where local women of society, aviators, naval captains, and Army officers alike whiled away the interminable hours that they were waiting before Bonaparte and England finally went to war again. It had been coming for months, everyone said, and the declarations were close at hand, and so Captains Kenobi, Skywalker, and Windu had been sent south from Edinburgh to represent their covert and wait for orders to be brought by dragonback immediately back to the Corps. Anakin found himself liking Windu, though he was intimidating also – a tall, glowering Egyptian rider who was one of the few in the world able to communicate and train feral dragons, and who had come to Nelson’s aide at the Battle of the Nile with his flock of hungry, destructive desert beasts. His Corps dragon was Pontificus, a brown-flecked Pyrophite Albion of Cody’s generation who was apparently just as ruthless as Windu himself in battle.

Windu also shared Anakin’s general disgust for the duties of Society, and made no secret of it – so Anakin, at a skinny, over-stretched eleven years old and definitely feeling overawed by the company (though he could now make perfect conversation on the topic of anything to do with flying, dragon care and the intricacies of working alongside women), and missing Rex (who was at a distant London covert) and Padme (in Edinburgh) terribly, he was content to stand ramrod straight in a corner with Windu and watch Captain Kenobi pay their collective dues to the world of fashion, politics, and money.

Captain Kenobi was making his way towards them through the crowd, as it happened, and Anakin hurriedly downed the rest of his wine and readied his hand to shake that of the well-dressed gentleman at the aviator’s side, who was tall and had a meticulously groomed look to him that told Anakin he was probably very rich and powerful indeed.

“Captains Windu and Skywalker, might I present Lord Organa, of His Majesty’s Cabinet,” Kenobi said, with an easy smile – clearly he and the politician were friends of some long-standing. “Lord Organa will be one of the first to hear anything of Boney’s intentions, so it would behoove us to command his attention for the rest of the evening.”

“Captain Kenobi does not need to flatter in order for me to take a serious interest in the role of the Aerial Corps in the upcoming war, gentlemen,” Organa said easily, bowing gracefully to them both. “Ah, and this is the prodigy!” he added, with a kindly smile for Anakin which Anakin took with somewhat bad grace, having heard far too many reminders of his age from his fellow aviators to still think it was funny. “How do you think the Corps will do against Bonaparte, Captain Skywalker?”

“Very well indeed,” Anakin said proudly, puffing up at the fact that he was giving advice to someone of Organa’s standing. “We’re in the third generation of breeding the Albions, and they all have excellent captains.”

“I’m sure they do,” Organa said. “And you feel your regiment has remained battle-ready throughout the peace? I hear from Captain Kenobi,” he continued, turning to the officer in question, who was sniggering slightly into his drink, “that the formation training with the Longwing dragons could be improved.”

“Er,” Anakin said, somewhat nonplussed that the politician seemed to actually know what he was talking about.

“Go on, Captain,” Windu said – he, too, was smirking a little. “Tell Lord Organa about the formation training you and Regulus were completing before we came down to London.”

“I’d rather not,” Anakin mumbled.

“No, I’m not surprised – seeing as it involves several broken fences, an entire escaped herd of cattle and sheep, and a day-long firefighting effort by every groundscrew we have,” Kenobi laughed. He clapped a blushing Anakin on the shoulder in apology for their teasing.

There was a murmur growing in the crowd of dancers and officers, which seemed to have started near the door to the sweltering rooms; Organa turned away from them with a brief apology, and quickly read a letter which was handed to him by a Navy lieutenant who had breathlessly shouldered his way towards him. Silence had fallen, Anakin noticed, and just like that, his stomach started squirming.

“Well, gentlemen,” Organa said slowly, his voice raised for the benefit of all as he read over the few scrawled lines Anakin could see again. “You will all know where to report for your orders!”

Instantly, the babble was louder than it had ever been before; the musicians who had previously been belting out dance tunes reassembled themselves for a hasty rendition of ‘God Save the King,’ toasts rang out, huzzahs were chanted. Kenobi grabbed hold of Anakin’s arm to keep him close in the inevitable stampede of officers that made its way to the doors; there Windu parted from them, saying he would report to the Admiralty for the covert’s instructions and meet them as soon as he was able. Within fifteen minutes, Anakin and Kenobi were able to find a carriage to take them out to the rural pens where Cody and Rex were waiting, and an hour after that, they were clambering out again, surrounded by their chattering, bright-eyed crews, who had clearly already heard the news.

“War!” Rex growled happily, puffs of smoke emerging from his nostrils in his excitement. “I cannot wait.” He was huge, now, having finally finished growing a month or so before he turned one year old; he was bulky and strong, his muscles even more developed than Constantinus, and a few feet longer from nose to tail as well. Though he was still only flying with Anakin and a skeleton crew of volunteers, Anakin doubted this arrangement would last much longer – he would have to recruit a crew and proper grounds team, no doubt, for the battles that were coming, and no doubt he would still be the youngest person flying on Rex’s back.

“Me neither,” Anakin confessed, clambering quickly up into his usual perch as Mr. Alwin and the rest of Cody’s groundscrew began to prepare the golden dragon’s great war hardness for the flight back to Scotland. “We shall do our level best, won’t we?”

“Indeed we shall,” Rex hummed, and leapt for the skies.

*

**TBC**

*


	9. Chapter 9

*

The next few days were a complete whirlwind. Anakin had only been a part of the hullabaloo which accompanied the re-fitting and victualling of a navy ship once; this was just as busy, and even more monumental in scale due to their being dragons involved. The recalling of officers and crew that had been sent home on half-pay meant the dormitories and barracks were stuffed to their rafters with squabbling, overtired men and women desperately seeking positions and favor with various Captains. They barely had an hour a day to fly, but they did so at every opportunity, as Rex still needed the exercise and Anakin was anxious about their fitness for battle; though they practiced alone, Anakin made sure they worked through the long, complicated turns and zig-zags that would be necessary for them to protect Mandalore, and Rex was eager to oblige, his newfound strength powering them through the air with minimum effort.

In the twenty-four hours after Anakin and Rex arrived in Scotland, however, of greatest importance was the task of choosing a chief Groundsman, overseeing the construction of Rex’s own war harness, and the assembling of his crew.

The choice of a groundskeeper, the officer who would be in charge of Rex’s general health and of the upkeep and improvement of his war harness and stores whether on the ground or on campaign, was easy in the end. Mr. Hardcastle came recommended to him via several parties, including Captain Kenobi, and Rex liked him very much too after an initial few hours of suspicion. As for the rest, Anakin chose not to hand out lieutenancy commissions willy-nilly; he asked to be sent the youngest and most ‘adventurous’ young men of the Corps, not entirely sure what he meant by it, and when he met them all (nearly forty of them, which was intimidating enough in and of itself) their eagerness to be aloft made him all the more excited.

Kenobi was busy enough with his and Cody’s own preparations – he was ordered to fly patrols along the Scottish coast almost immediately when they landed, and so was rather absent from Anakin for nearly a week – but he made time when he could to make sure Anakin was ready, if not any less overwhelmed. The entire covert was a hive of activity as food, canvas, rope, leather, and men streamed into it; Anakin barely even saw Padme and the rest of Mandalore’s girls for days, though he knew that they were perhaps working the hardest of any of them.

Anakin couldn’t sleep a wink. Nor could Rex, he knew, because whenever he came out to his dragon’s pen in the mornings he could see the marks where Rex had been pacing, or scorch marks on the long, low shed where his harness was kept because he couldn’t help but let out a belch of fire. (It had been a large but wonderful surprise when he’d started breathing flames, three months previous; Yoda, however, had not been pleased at the sudden bonfire engulfing the end of his tail.)

And then, three days into their preparation, as they heard that the two great powers were still only just beginning to jockey for space in the Channel, news began to circulate in the covert that a new Longwing dragon was about to hatch.

“Have you heard who it is going to be?” Cody rumbled one evening over at Anakin and Rex. “I have been told that Captain Kryze has been given the honor of choosing the new captain.”

“Choosing?” Anakin asked curiously, still chewing over his dinner. “Is that not up to the dragon?”

“Well, I suppose,” Cody mused, “but it is also tradition for the Corps to choose a young officer worthy of the honor and the work to be their first choice, and most often than not the dragon will accept them. Obi-Wan was chosen for me,” he continued on proudly, “and we are very well-suited. I could hear the commotion outside my egg as they were waiting for me to be hatched, and I was most satisfied with what I heard of him. He knew how to present himself to a new dragon,” he added slyly, chortling a little in Anakin’s direction. “ _He_ was in his dress uniform.”

“What a bore,” Rex yawned back cheekily. “I am glad I chose Anakin. None of the other young men on the _Espa_ appeared worth the bother of hatching.”

Anakin finished his dinner in silence, and then ran right back up to the castle. Creeping down into the bowels of the decaying stone buildings, it only took him minutes to find his way into the hatching rooms – hot and dripping with steam and mist, the coals that were piled around the rows of eggs – some small, for the likes of the Winchesters, and some much bigger, like those of the Pyrophite Albions and the enormous, heavy-weight Regal Coppers – burned and crumbled slowly, giving one the impression that one was descending into an enormous Turkish bath.

Anakin stopped at the sight of Captain Kryze and Padme standing by one of the eggs, a mid-sized, blue and speckled egg that had a crack winding away its surface. Both were in their best uniforms, making Anakin feel conspicuously underdressed, and – to Anakin’s delight – Padme was holding a small, beautifully-made leather harness.

“Are you sure, sir?” Padme asked, still not noticing Anakin. Her hands were shaking, and her eyes were wide. “If you had wanted me to stay with you, sir, and be Mandalore’s captain one day, I – ”

“I have made my choice, Lieutenant Amidala,” Kryze replied firmly, a kind smile on her lips. “I can think of no one better. Ah, Captain Skywalker,” she added then, and Padme turned to Anakin with a terrified grin. “You are just in time.”

The egg wobbled and split open further, and Padme gasped with delight as a sticky, blinking head snaked its way out towards her. The dragon yawned, showing sharp white teeth, and then its eyes opened, and looked curiously, happily, at Padme.

“Oh,” it said pleasantly, in a cultured, formal, female voice. “How very nice. Yes, you will do splendidly. Are you to give me my name?”

“Naboo,” Padme squealed, and threw herself into her dragon’s arms.

*

**TBC**

*


	10. Chapter 10

*

_November, 1812; on the Russian front_

Captain Anakin Skywalker of His Majesty’s Dragon Regulus turned twenty years old when he was on campaign in Russia; his fellow aviators toasted him very briefly with sour vodka before hurrying away to their tents and campfires, shivering in the bitter cold on the desolated plains around a devastated Moscow. Captain Kenobi stayed a few moments longer, though there was little time to lose if he was to make his rendezvous with Admiral Yoda in St. Petersburg, and he was bundled up in so many coats and furs that the fierce hug he gave Anakin was a bit of a useless exercise.

“Stay safe,” he shouted, over the howl of the wind. “And warm, if you can manage it!”

“You’d better hurry,” Anakin called back, grinning. “By the time you and that old fusspot of yours turn back south we’ll have chased Boney right out of Russia.”

“I can only hope,” Obi-Wan laughed, and then, with a wave of a hand, he plunged off into the snowdrifts and muddied, frozen tracks of their hastily-built covert, trudging towards the massive bulk of Constantinus, whose huge shadow loomed eerily through the dancing snow.

Anakin wrapped his arms around himself and turned away, too, huddling closer into the shelter of Rex’s protective wing. “Some birthday,” he said.

“Well, it’s not so very bad,” Rex rumbled, somehow managing to sound cheerful. “You could be stuck at home, Anakin.”

“True,” Anakin grinned, scratching briefly at his eye – the scar there, only two weeks old and caused by a rifleman firing down at Rex from a French dragon flying above them as they fought to break the siege of Moscow, was still itchy. He was hungry, and very awake, and also very ready for another battle – he had lived and fought through six major campaigns, now, and this latest one was ready to be won but not at all satisfying. “But we’ll be home soon enough, I wager. They say Boney is losing thousands of men on every day of this miserable retreat.”

“I can believe it,” Rex yawned, huddling down further into the snow, keeping his wings and legs tucked in close for warmth. “Blast this infernal cold.

“But you have more visitors,” Rex added, snickering slightly, steam puffing out of his nostrils, and Anakin turned to see a slim form which must have been Padme slogging her way towards him, treading carefully on slicks of dirty ice.

“I didn’t know you were here,” he said happily, grabbing her outstretched hand and tugging her into the shelter of Rex’s massive bulk. “When did you land?”

“This morning – or at least, I think it was morning,” Padme said, shoving back her fur-lined hood; her cheeks were red and her eyes bright from the cold. “How can you even tell the passing of the hours in this horrible place?”

“You don’t. You tell time by the number of dead Frogs.”

Padme swatted at him in punishment for his callousness, though she didn’t stop smiling. “You look well, Ani.”

“I feel well. I’d feel better if the damn snow would stop long enough for us to launch a concentrated attack.”

“Well,” Padme sighed, scrunching down into the snow beside him, “you may get your wish quite soon. Naboo and I brought fresh orders – we’re to harass the retreating columns as soon as the weather clears.”

“And how are your crew of ingrates?”

“My lieutenants are quite well,” Padme said, rolling her eyes at him. “I do wish you’d stop calling them that.”

“Why not?” Anakin grinned. “The unholy gaggle of Eritaé-Saché-Yané-Sabé-and-Rabé will never not be ingrates.”

“I’m happy to have them, you know I am,” she retorted. “I don’t know how I’d have been able to captain Naboo at the start without Satine transferring them to me.”

“I know,” Anakin said, quieter, reaching out for Padme’s thickly-gloved hand. She looked startled as his fingers closed over hers, but a moment later she gave him a bright smile. She had grown into a great beauty, Anakin thought idly – well, not idly, because he spent rather a lot of time thinking that, these days.

 _A credit to the Corps, both of us_ , he thought proudly, and, without even realizing quite what he was doing, he leaned sideways and kissed her.

What could have been a very special moment indeed was shattered with a whirlwind of freezing air as Rex suddenly lifted his wing. “Anakin,” he snorted. “The clouds have cleared, I understand we are to – oh,” he suddenly broke off, staring at them curiously. “Oh, I do apologize.”

“Never mind, Rex,” Anakin sighed, and Padme giggled briefly into her hands before she stood and hauled Anakin up with her. “We were quite aware.”

“Were you making an egg?”

“ _Rex,_ ” Anakin bellowed, blushing furiously – Padme was already running back through the covert towards Naboo, laughing all the way. “That’s quite enough, thank you!”

“I was only going to say,” Rex sniffed, “that if you _were_ thinking of having an egg of your own, Captain Amidala would be a very appropriate choice for you, Anakin. And I would not object to becoming closer friends with Naboo, since, after all, we would both have great interest in your dragonet.”

“We are _not_ talking about this,” Anakin blustered as his crew began to rouse, coming sleepy and shivering out of their scattered tents, uniforms and bits of harnesses in hand. “The French, Rex? Napoleon retreating? Last hammer blow of the Frogs, is any of this ringing a bell?”

“Many bells,” Rex sniggered back, grinning fiercely, showing all his teeth. “Let us fly!”

In the end, it was a miserable, miserable day. The storms blew up again while they were in the air, caking officers and dragons alike in sheets of snow, ice, and sleet; the spectacle of Napoleon’s retreat was even more depressing, as thousands upon thousands of men trudged wearily westwards, bodies of horses and humans alike scattered around the pitted, blasted roads. They were so clearly desperate, in fact, that when the Pyrophite Albions among the British formations swooped down to set fire to the remnants of guns and other armaments the remaining soldiers ran towards the flames rather than away from them, for the sake of a few brief moments of warmth.

The news Kenobi brought back to them a week later – that they were to be withdrawn all the way to wet, green, well-stocked England – came, therefore, as a truly blessed relief.

*

**TBC**

*


	11. Chapter 11

*

_Early 1813_

It was a long four months at the Edinburgh covert before spring showed the English that Bonaparte was not only still alive, but that he was kicking mightily. In the interim, there was little to do but patrolling, and Anakin found himself thinking, not for the first time since he joined the Corps, that being involved in a war was in fact the most hellishly boring occupation a gentleman (or indeed a former cabin boy) could ever sign himself up for.

Anakin didn’t fare well when he had nothing to do, as it turned out. He took a few days’ leave and trundled south to London in a hired carriage for something to do; he went drinking in Edinburgh; he trained with Rex, flawlessly executing the loops and slow spins of Longwing formations again and again until even Rex himself was complaining that he could do it in his sleep. Only Padme’s presence soothed him, and that in and of itself was fraught with various minor dangers – he could not marry her, after all, with only his relatively meager captain’s pay to his name, and at any rate, aviators did not tend to become formally engaged. He was of no family at all, no history, no rank, despite the gift of a magnificent, ancient Briton piece of dragon armor gifted to him by His Majesty for his role in winning the Battle of Trafalgar, a golden headpiece which Rex now coveted above all other earthly goods. He had little to offer but himself – thankfully Padme seemed very satisfied with what he _could_ give, but still, Anakin found himself chafing under these restrictions, and little inclined to accept his lot in life. 

Which is when he started reading to pass the time (something which astonished Captain Kenobi, who had tried and failed for years to inculcate his young protégé with the habit of actually knowing what was going on in the world), and found, in his various newspapers and pamphlets and novels, ideas which, in retrospect, he would come to recognize as very dangerous indeed.

“Rex,” he said one rainy morning, as he walked into his dragon’s muddy enclosure, patting a great white-blue leg absentmindedly while Rex ate his morning complement of beef. “Are you happy here?”

“That is a strange question,” Rex said, after swallowing. “Why do you ask?”

“I just mean – ” Anakin looked distractedly around him, at the craggy, damp Scottish hills, the lowering sky, and the neat patterns of fences in the valley around them. “I’ve read here that Bonaparte treats his dragons extremely well, you see. He builds palaces for them, like the Emperor does in China.”

“Oh, well,” Rex said carelessly, “I suppose we should do that, then.”

“Should we?”

Rex only laughed, and went back to his breakfast. “If he loved them so well, Anakin,” he added, chewing mightily, “he would not send them so freely into battles they have been so sure to lose – either his men, or his dragons.”

“H’m,” Anakin said, and wandered off again, frowning down at his newspaper.

“What’s to say Bonaparte is any better or worse than a king?” he said sleepily, a few days later, when he and Padme were half-awake in the very early morning in her quarters, which were as neat and carefully, prettily arranged as his were an absolute mess.

He could hear, rather than see, her frowning at him as he pulled her close under their shared covers. “I don’t think the point is that he’s an emperor, Anakin,” she said quietly. “It’s that he seeks to bend all of Europe to his will.”

“They hate him because he takes a crown without having royal blood, that’s all it is,” Anakin yawned. “And I don’t know – spreading his Code to nations that need it is hardly the end of the world, is it?”

Padme put a hand under his chin and tilted it up until he sleepily opened his eyes. “This is dangerous talk, Anakin,” she said sternly, half-worried, half-suspicious. “We follow our orders – and besides, we’re too young to have lived through how Napoleon came to power. The French are not to be trusted, and Lord Organa and the men of the Admiralty remember the terror of the guillotine very well. Would you have England fall under the sway of foreign armies?”

“No, of course not,” Anakin grumbled, turning over on his shoulder away from her. “Never mind.”

It was Captain Kenobi, in the end, who made up Anakin’s mind somewhat for the better. Helping their crews to muck out their dragons’ enclosures one blessedly-sunny morning in February, Anakin paused in his work in order to lean over the fence into Cody’s enclosure and call out – “Why is it that each nation has its own breeds of dragon?”

“A history lesson, Captain Skywalker?” Obi-Wan laughed back, wiping his brow on his shirtsleeve. “How unlike you.”

“It’s a serious enquiry, Captain,” Anakin sniffed, “if you’ll deign to answer it.”

“Many reasons,” Obi-Wan said, more thoughtfully, sticking his spade into the dirt so he could walk over to Anakin unimpeded, wiping his hands on a spare bit of cloth. “Simple geography, at first. Various dragons are native to Britain, to France, to China and Egypt, for instance. After that, they have always been bred by humans as beasts of burden and war. Why do you ask?”

“It seems – unfair,” Anakin said slowly, “that we possess certain breeds, for example, and so do the French, and that we use them against each other to our own advantage.”

“That is simply the way things are,” Kenobi shrugged. “Why – what other way do you think there would be?”

“Share our dragons, end our war.”

Kenobi blinked at him, slowly. “I beg your pardon?”

“Dragons have no place being pawns of the Admiralty,” Anakin said earnestly, warming to his theme. “The army, the navy – these are the creations of men and the results of their labors. But good God, Obi-Wan, we are forcing our Albions into the conditions of outright _slavery_ in this conflict – ”

“Have a care, sir,” Obi-Wan said sharply, his face darkening with anger. “You demean the sacrifices of generations of our finest aviators and their dragons, as well as every groundsman who has worked themselves to the bone in their service.”

Anakin lapsed into silence, suddenly aware that Rex had snaked his long neck up above them and was listening intently, and that no doubt Cody, mere yards away, was as well.

“So simply because dragons have always been tools of war, they must always remain so?” he asked, frustrated.

“No,” Kenobi said instantly. “That is never to be desired. You know that any of us would release our dragons into a life of leisure if we were able.”

He reached over the fence, put a firm, comforting hand on Anakin’s arm. “Your feelings do you credit, Anakin,” he continued, more quietly, “but they are of little use in this time and place. Wait until we win our peace, and then think on this again.”

Anakin considered for a long moment, and then looked up at Rex, who looked – content, he thought, and certainly not as though he wished to join Anakin in being a revolutionary.

“All right,” he said, and nodded, and Obi-Wan gave him a tight smile before turning back to his work; in his wake, Anakin stood still for a long time, and only after a while gave up on the idea of, one day, stealing an egg far, far away from ‘this’ time and ‘this’ place.

*

**TBC**

*


	12. Chapter 12

*

_March, 1813_

As the bitter winter of 1812 finally started to fade into spring, the news from Europe was – if not disastrous – seemingly dire. Bonaparte, it seemed, had not been fully defeated after all, and was massing fresh armies in France and further east to engage the Prussians; the only good news was the fact that old and new allies had come pouring in to help Britain in her fight, finally desperate to eradicate Napoleon’s armies once and for all from the land and the sea.

The Navy was doing much better against French and American shipping and warships alike, and the Corps was frequently engaged in protecting or scouting out various convoys in the Channel and further afield in the Atlantic. It was also there, however, that the Corps’ own luck began to run out.

Anakin and Rex were flying in a convoy of four when it happened – Cody and Pontificus, bearing Captain Windu, were with them to protect the regiment’s third Longwing and her Captain Gallia off the coast of Brest when the fog started to roll in on them. Tightening formation, they flew on; but there was something close to them, a smell of some sort which had Rex snarling at the back of his throat.

“What is it?” Anakin asked, running up to Rex’s head so he could speak directly into his dragon’s ear; Rex merely blinked, rumbled out a sullen negation, and flew on.

It plummeted down towards them seemingly out of nowhere – a huge, ragged, salivating black dragon with crimson-red wings, of no breed that Anakin could identify, clearly a feral. Its shrieks were totally alien and bereft of language as it dropped like a stone out of the sky above them – and straight onto the back of the Longwing in their midst. As Pontificus bellowed and flapped his wings into the intruder, its massive claws were doing its work; it ripped cruelly into the Longwing’s back, sent straps snapping and aviators tumbling through the air, shouting in terror as they fell through the clouds towards the distant ocean. Rex turned as quickly as he could, slicing his wings through banks of cloud, but it was too late – with a final creak and a scream which Anakin, horrified, thought was the final utterance of Captain Gallia herself, the war harness was torn completely from the Longwing’s back, and the dragon, her back bloodied to the spine and her wings lying dormant, fell to her death.

Rex roared out an anguished cry and was taking a deep breath as he tore after the strange, murderous dragon, readying himself to send out a jet of fire as Anakin barked orders to his crew to man their portable swivel cannons – but Cody got there first. Bellowing at the top of his considerable lungs and spitting flames, the golden Albion plunged at the feral and engaged it on its own terms, claw to claw, with the aviators on his back grimly hanging on for dear life; as the dragons grappled, the crew fired what handguns they had to hand, and even swung outwards on ropes to hack at the enemy’s black hide with their officer’s swords, but these attempts seemed to make little difference as the great beasts tore and bit at each other.

All Anakin and Windu could do, circling tightly above, was watch and keep an eye out for further trouble, of which none came – after long minutes, the two battling dragons sank suddenly into a patch of cloud, and then, as Anakin stood straight up and peered down as hard as he could, willing Cody to re-emerge with everything he had… finally, relief, as the sound of huge wings beating floated through the air, and the British dragon emerged alone, clearly injured but alive, with the feral nowhere in sight.

“Quickly, Rex,” Anakin ordered, pointing. “We must lend our support on his starboard side.”

“Aye,” Rex said fiercely, and flew rapidly downwards; coming up underneath Cody, he supported the older dragon as best he could with his head and neck under his right wing while Anakin, open-mouthed, surveyed the damage. There were several deep rents in Cody’s hide that he could see, all bleeding freely; moans drifted out of the crew shelters, indicating broken bones or worse, and clinging to the top of the ragged, ripped harness, Obi-Wan looked no better, his face blackened with soot and blood.

“Is it dead?”

“Unfortunately not,” Kenobi shouted back. “He disengaged and flew for France.”

“What the hell _was_ that?” Anakin called out over the gap between them as, mercifully, Dover came into sight on the horizon.

“That,” Kenobi said, once they were back on firm ground and Anakin had shoved a mug of beer into his hands while he set about cleaning and dressing his friend’s head wound, “was Maul.”

Anakin stared, his hands stilling on the bandages; beside them, Cody was snarling and grumbling his way through Mr. Alwin’s treatment of his own deep gashes. “ _Maul?_ I thought he was dead.”

“So I’d hoped,” Obi-Wan said tightly, hissing as Anakin set about his work again. “We downed him at Marengo back in 1800 – we saw him fall and thought that was the end of it, but it seems we were unfortunately mistaken. He recognized Cody, that is for sure. And now he adds another Captain to his list of the slain,” Obi-Wan continued, shaking his head with disgust. “First Captain Jinn, now Captain Gallia. He is grown infamous.”

“Where did he come from?”

“No one is sure. There are great flocks of ferals in the Khads and Caucus mountains – that has always been our best guess. He will attack anything, British or French alike, but Anakin – you must be wary,” Obi-Wan said, grabbing Anakin’s hand and staring at him fiercely. “He has always taken particular care to kill our Longwings, and the Albions too. Do you understand me?”

Something cold and heavy settled in the pit of Anakin’s stomach at the idea of Padme and Naboo, or Rex, at the mercy of a dragon seemingly so deadly, and so cruel. It frightened him – more than the revelation that Obi-Wan was clearly aware of his relationship with Padme ever could.

“I do,” he said solemnly.

“Good.” Kenobi sighed, and then sat back against Cody’s scales, wincing as he prodded carefully at his wrapped head. “You must report this to Admiral Yoda immediately. Captain Windu will stay here and secure us safe transport to the nearest covert.”

“But – ”

“No buts, Captain Skywalker,” Kenobi said – his tone was stern, but his expression was kind. “Go to Edinburgh. See your friends. I suspect we will soon be missing them, and far from home.”

Anakin gulped, nodded, and turned, running to Rex as fast as he could. For the first time in a very long time, he realized – as they took off, as they set their sights for home, as he thought of Padme – he was very, very afraid.

*

**TBC**

*


	13. Chapter 13

*

_Battle of Lützen, May 1813_

It took Anakin longer than it should have to realize that he and Padme had learned how to love each other from watching Obi-Wan and Satine.

He had first noticed the Unholy Gaggle’s jokes about them as a boy, of course, though he hadn’t known then what they’d meant by them. By the time he was thirteen and had been thoroughly schooled in the devious ways of the Aerial Corps – after an equally extensive grounding in all sorts of interesting vocabulary and storytelling in the Navy, of course – he knew exactly what _all_ of those jokes meant, and found he didn’t much care. The captains of Longwings had daughters, and if they had sons they had daughters later, and no one ever asked questions. It was entirely their own business, for marriage between captains was rare, and as a young man Anakin had little interest in how exactly it all worked.

But at twenty, and being quite desperately in love with Padme, it suddenly mattered a great deal that two of the most senior captains in the Corps were widely known and acknowledged to be lovers. Anakin had been aware since he was a boy that Kryze and Obi-Wan were both alike and complementary; if his wit was sharp, hers cut deeper, and his pleasant calm was often the only thing that could mollify her notorious, righteous temper. Their dragons were friends, though Anakin knew nothing of whether Cody and Mandalore planned one day to mate; both had a steady, peaceable sensibility on land which was overtaken by a fierce and disciplined protectiveness while in battle.

It meant something, suddenly, that when they were both at the covert Kryze and Kenobi turned the officer’s mess practically into a salon, shepherding conversation and wine and laughter even in the darkest moments of the war. It mattered that Obi-Wan loved Anakin as a brother, and Satine loved Padme as a daughter, and both took a keen and influential interest in their careers. And it mattered, though it never had before, that at the end of these evenings, and often in Admiral Yoda’s presence, Captains Kryze and Kenobi would retire together, and the next morning, it was six of one and half a dozen of the other as to whether Anakin, ready for formation practice, would find Obi-Wan in his own quarters or in Captain Kryze’s, right across the way, where one of them would carelessly open the door to him with a cheerful greeting and sleepy eyes, totally unashamed.

Anakin didn’t know for sure exactly what love was – but in emulating their mentors, what he had with Padme felt like it, and that, it seemed, was enough for all of them.

He was to find out what love interrupted felt like, at least, and the pain it caused, quite soon, for they and their dragons, and indeed most of the regiment, were ordered to fly east to Germany and aid in the battle that was due to start any day near the small town of Lützen, in Saxony. Bonaparte wasn’t supposed to have so many men still alive (more than two hundred and fifty thousand of them), let alone in fighting condition, and Anakin had been convinced that they had downed enough of his dragons during the chaotic retreat from Russian soil that they would have the advantage in the air, too. But there they were, the French, massed in fields and meadows around Lützen like they belonged there, and their dragons still looked powerful enough that when the British dragons luffed up to aid the Prussians and Russians on the ground it almost looked like it would be a hard-fought fight on equal footing.

And then, halfway through the afternoon, when Rex and Naboo had just finished a brief break back on earth before powering aloft again, a black and red shadow loomed over the battlefield, shrieking, and Rex bellowed with alarm at the sight of Maul plummeting out of the sky.

“Up aloft! _Now!_ ” Anakin bellowed, and both his and Naboo’s crew were quick to answer; they were in the air in moments, with Captain Windu and Pontificus moments behind them and quick to slot seamlessly into their formation, keeping as closely protective to Naboo as possible. In the distance, Kenobi’s wing was equally tight around Mandalore; but as they watched, speeding closer, two French Flamme-de-Gloires took their chance to attack Captain Koon on Wilhelmus, and as the grey Albion roared and fought them off, Maul was left with the perfect opening.

Rex called out in rage as Maul dropped like a stone onto Mandalore’s back, scattering shelters, bodies, and pieces of harness in his wake. Shrieking, the Longwing twisted this way and that, but could not dislodge him; Cody immediately broke rank as well and rocketed downwards to help, but even from a distance Anakin could tell there was nothing he and Obi-Wan could do without taking all three dragons down.

The battlefield was misty with fog and cannon-smoke – in instants, the two twisting, serpentine forms had vanished.

It was another hour before there was a break in the action long enough for the remaining dragons to find their way back behind Prussian lines; a retreat had been ordered, though it was not a defeat as such, as the French clearly did not have the strength to pursue. Anakin scrambled off of Rex’s heaving back as soon as they landed, crushing Padme briefly into his arms, then rushing on, leaving her sobbing quietly into her hands.

Cody’s big head was lowered in grief as he huddled close to the earth, snarling at every attempt Mr. Alwin made to unfasten him from his harness. Obi-Wan staggered as he thudded to ground, and he was white as a sheet.

“Obi-Wan,” Anakin called, and as he reached his friend he grabbed Kenobi’s arms, turned him firmly to face him, shook him. “It’s not too late. We can send out a search party, surely they will have something they will wish to trade – ”

“Maul doesn’t leave dragons alive,” Kenobi said tightly, shoving his way out of Anakin’s grasp. “And if Mandalore is dead, there would be no reason for them to keep Satine among the living.”

“You don’t know that!” Anakin cried hotly. “We’ve known for years that they covet Longwings, surely there’s a chance – ”

“Anakin, please!”

The sheer anguish in Obi-Wan’s voice stopped Anakin in his tracks, so much so that it seemed to have startled Kenobi himself; he took a deep breath before he turned back to Anakin and spoke again. “We are at war, Anakin,” he said, quieter. “You and I have lost too much to put our faith in forlorn hopes. Please,” he added, again, gripping Anakin’s hand and squeezing it hard. “Please, do not expect me to waste what time I have left withering away for the dead.”

And then he turned away and went to Cody, who greeted him with a low, mournful howl. Padme came up beside a nonplussed Anakin, grabbed his fingers between hers.

“It looked nasty,” Padme choked out. “I doubt there are any survivors.”

Anakin looked at Obi-Wan, at his trembling hands, at the bend of sorrow in his neck.

“If there are, I’ll find them,” he muttered fiercely, turning to Padme so she could see the seriousness of his expression. “I promise you I will.”

*

**TBC**

*


	14. Chapter 14

*

_July 1813; Napoleon is maintaining his forces in Germany and preparing to attack Dresden_

It took nearly two months for Anakin to be proved right, and in that time the covert was one of the most unhappy places he could conceive of on earth. It wasn’t just that the loss of a Longwing threw all planning for formations and battle plans completely out of alignment, or that Mandalore and Satine had been generally well-liked; it was that everyone knew, or quickly were informed, of just what Captains Kryze and Kenobi had meant to each other, and to have the backbone of Kenobi and Constantinus so quietly miserable in their midst brought the spirits of the entire Edinburgh-based Corps down very low indeed. It was all made worse by the fact that there was little to do on the Continent; what dragons were able were sent to Spain to aid in the campaign against Joseph Bonaparte there, where Wellington was winning some very impressive victories, but in Germany nothing was required of them but occasional patrols to keep an eye on each army rebuilding itself. Lützen and its following battle at Haynau had resulted in the disastrous loss of more than two hundred thousand men of all stripes; it would be some time before either side was ready to fight again.

And so Anakin and Rex patrolled, and Cody and Kenobi were silent, and Padme was pale and withdrawn, missing her former Captain more than she would admit (as well as mourning the undoubted loss of Cordé, the sole member of her former crew who had stayed with Mandalore after Naboo’s birth). Even Yoda frowned and sighed at the state of them all, and had little to offer but the assurance that life, and the war, would go on. There was no sign, in all of this time, of the treacherous Maul.

It was a perfectly ordinary morning in late July, therefore, when Rex was winging his way lazily across the length of the French coastline on patrol, nearly ready to turn and make their return run to the covert, when Anakin, craning over Rex’s neck, saw a flash of something very familiarly-colored in the thick of a patch of tangled woodland near Calais.

“Rex,” he shouted, and pointed excitedly downwards. “Is that – ”

“It is,” Rex rumbled instantly, his wings beating strongly. “I can smell her. It’s Mandalore!”

“If she’s alive, they must have Satine too,” Anakin called back, thinking fast as his crew started to lean out of the harness, chattering fiercely among themselves at the glimpses of blue and orange scales visible through the tree cover. “Or at least, they are telling Mandalore that Satine is safe, to keep her tame!”

“She could be hurt, Anakin,” Rex said thoughtfully as he turned and began to fly back in the direction from which they’d come, as one of Anakin’s officers came up to him and pointed out the exact location of where they had seen Mandalore on their aerial maps, for their future reference. “If we plan to rescue them, we should consider that we might not be able to fly her home.”

“She’s made it this far, all the way across Germany and France,” Anakin mused, scratching at his hair, “so she must be somewhat fit. Come to think of it, why the devil have they done that?”

“They’re planning to use her,” Rex growled angrily as he swooped over the Channel. “They must have _some_ hold over her, or they wouldn’t have been able to force her to fight for them in English skies.”

The look on Obi-Wan’s face when Anakin brought back his news was something to behold, a mixture of joy and utmost worry. And he looked even more worried when Anakin triumphantly held out one of two French army uniforms to him and told him to get Cody ready to fly.

“You must be mad,” Obi-Wan said, looking sternly down at the red-and-blue officer’s coat. “If they capture us in these, we’ll be executed as spies.”

“And if they catch us in _these_ ,” Anakin said roughly, plucking at the cuff of Obi-Wan’s green aviator uniform, “they’ll have two more British dragons under their thumbs. So hurry up and get changed, before we run out of daylight!”

With Yoda’s swift permission they flew as far as Dover together, and then left Rex, anxious and muttering angrily to his crew, on English soil while Anakin and Obi-Wan continued on alone, with no crew to hinder them, towards France on Cody. Leaving the big golden dragon on a deserted Norman beach and striking out into enemy territory on horseback was possibly the most idiotic thing Anakin had ever done, but also one of the most exciting; and as they rode east, with the sun setting, he could tell from the firm set of Kenobi’s shoulders that he was just as determined as Anakin to do their duty in the service of a friend.

There was a large and chaotic enough garrison occupying the town of Dunkirk that they were able to blend in seamlessly with the crowds of other French soldiers; there was a dragon here too, Anakin could tell by the smell, a heavy musk that made Kenobi’s nose wrinkle, and he covered his mouth and nose with one hand as they walked the outskirts of the various camps scattered around Dunkirk’s walls. “Maul,” he muttered once, and it made sense to Anakin; the feral dragon would not want to be far from his prize.

When they were only a few hundred meters from the copse where Anakin and Rex had seen Mandalore hidden, Kenobi hissed something wordless at Anakin and pulled him back behind one of the tents. “There,” he whispered, pointing to another tent not far off, larger than most of the others but rather more run-down, in front of which two bored-looking guards stood watch. “I’d wager we should start with that.”

It was but the work of a moment, in the darkness and half-light of campfires, to slip around to the back of said tent and slice a large slit in the canvas; by the time Anakin forced himself through the gap, Satine was already in Obi-Wan’s arms.

“Glad to see you, Captain Kryze,” Anakin grinned quietly. “Now if you two don’t mind – ”

“Are you hurt?” Kenobi was whispering fiercely, looking her up and down – she was still in her aviator’s breeches and coat, though they looked rather the worse for wear. “Did they – ”

“No,” Satine said, looking down and smiling her exhausted, relieved greeting to Anakin. “They didn’t want me at all, in the end – they wanted the child.”

Which was when Obi-Wan made a very interesting, shocked little noise, and Anakin squinted, and then felt his eyes go wide and his mouth drop open.

There was no mistaking it at all, really.

“Good God,” Kenobi said faintly. “Is it – ”

“Of course it’s yours, you idiot,” Satine said, and kissed him, hard. “Now, are we escaping, or aren’t we?”

Mandalore started growling the moment they came into view, low and dangerously, sending her guards skittering nervously backwards; and the moment Satine touched her, the Longwing came alive with all of her repressed rage and anxiety, roaring and spitting acid into the trees which penned her in, causing alarm bells to start clanging and dozens of men to scream with agony as they tried to outrun her claws. Within a few moments, she was aloft with the three captains on her back, and was so happy at her newfound freedom that she nearly threw them all right off again as she rolled and swooped her way vengefully over the French camps, scattering tents and campfires with her talons.

“Oh, my dear!” Satine called happily, which only made Mandalore friskier. “I’ve missed you, but we really must – ”

A muted roar from behind them told them just what they had to fear – Maul powered suddenly and horrifyingly up from the ground behind them, and gained quickly as they shot back towards where they had left Cody.

“Hold on,” Kenobi shouted to Anakin, the wind whipping through his hair. Standing, he grabbed both his officer’s pistol and Anakin’s from his belt, raced along the length of Mandalore’s tail, and stood calmly, taking careful aim.

“Glide, Mandalore!” Anakin shouted, realizing what Kenobi was attempting. “Fly perfectly level, and slowly!”

The Longwing did as she was told as Satine clung to her neck, one arm protectively across her front; Maul gained and gained, snarling – and then, when he was mere feet away from the end of Mandalore’s tail, Obi-Wan fired both barrels into the black dragon’s enormous left eye. Maul shrieked and squalled; awkward and desperately flapping, he careened earthwards, and struck the ground far below them with an audible crack, a keening moan.

“That’s a wing gone, at the very least,” Obi-Wan said as he scuttled back to them, handing back Anakin’s pistol. He was pale with exertion, but undoubtedly happy as he put an arm around Satine’s shoulders.

When they arrived back at their rendezvous, Cody – who was covered in sand, no doubt in an attempt to stay hidden from any curious local residents or soldiers – bellowed a joyful greeting to Mandalore, and then lowered his head down to Satine, looking at her very carefully with his big brown eyes.

“My goodness, Captain Kryze,” he rumbled, staring at her midsection. “You are quite altered.”

“Yes, thank you, Constantinus,” Satine laughed, patting Cody’s snout. “You may blame your captain for this.”

Cody looked at Obi-Wan, then at Anakin, wide-eyed and extraordinarily happy. “My captain is having an EGG,” he honked.

“ _Right_ , that’s quite enough out of you,” Kenobi said, shoving at Cody’s shoulder. “Captain Skywalker will fly back with you, my dear. Captain Kryze needs to be reacquainted with her dragon, after all.”

Enduring Cody’s excited chatter was a small price to pay, Anakin thought sleepily soon after, as they were winging their way across a totally becalmed English Channel in the moonlight, for the sight of the little family across the way – a spindly, age-old dragon, her captain, and her captain’s lover – his friend.

If he squinted hard enough, after all, it was a picture he hoped would very soon be his own, too.

*

**TBC**

*


	15. Chapter 15

*

The covert was a flurry of activity on that first night of their return; despite the lateness of the hour, the castle came ablaze with lanterns and torches as Cody and Mandalore approached, and the little flood of aviators into the courtyard and dragons roaring at their friends’ return was as happy a greeting as Anakin had ever seen, even more exuberant than the grateful retreat from Russia. It was hours, and nearly dawn, before Mandalore was settled comfortably to her groundskeeper’s satisfaction (and the delighted petting she received from Padme) and Satine, who was clearly exhausted, had been toasted enough by the assembled officer’s mess and, finally, ushered off to bed. Obi-Wan disappeared soon after, apparently tiring (but not really, judging by the look on his face) of his fellow captains’ congratulations, leaving few besides Anakin, Padme, Windu, and, in his customary corner, Admiral Yoda to watch the new day start. 

“Most fortunate, we have been,” Yoda said to Anakin at some point; the old dragon had been happier than any of them, Anakin thought, at the news of the forthcoming addition to the covert, but now he sounded as grave and careful as ever. “But curious I still am as to why Mandalore was brought so close to England, and so easily discovered.” 

“Well, it was hardly _easy_ ,” Anakin scoffed as he drained the remainder of his port. “Is it really so surprising that they would have recruited one of their aviators to fly Mandalore? With Satine captured they could have forced the poor beast to do anything.” 

“Doubt Mandalore’s feelings, I do not,” Yoda snorted. “But suspicious of the ease of your travel, I am. Noticed you _no_ other French dragons during your flight?” 

That thought was enough to keep Anakin awake through much of the morning, even as Padme slept peacefully beside him, as happy to see him back as she had been to see Satine. By noon, he was up again, and walking out to Rex’s paddock, where his dragon was lazily snorting fire at passing seagulls. 

“All right, there, friend?” 

“Quite all right,” Rex said, with a yawn that showed off all of his teeth at once. “Don’t think I’ve forgiven you for leaving me behind, though, Anakin,” he sniggered, settling back down onto his haunches. “I would have shown Boney a thing or two last night.” 

“Boney wasn’t there,” Anakin laughed, putting his arms as far as he could around Rex’s neck and squeezing. “Though I would have liked to see you having a go at Maul, it’s true.” 

“Anyway,” Rex sniffed, “I would have done better than Cody. He’s come back with a wretched cold after waiting on that beach.” 

Anakin frowned away over Rex’s neck towards the adjoining paddock, where, in the distance, he could just make out the shape of Cody’s bulk lying peacefully in a corner. “He looks alright to me.” 

“Oh, well,” Rex said, “perhaps it was just a long night, then. He looked most queer, though I suppose the news would have come as a surprise. Mr. Alwin and Captain Kenobi are seeing to him, anyway – ” 

That same bulk that Anakin had been looking at reared up, suddenly, through the mist and weak Scottish sun, accompanied by a mighty roar; and, suddenly, completely stunned, Anakin found himself looking, open-mouthed, as Cody lunged forward, eyes narrowed and teeth bared, smoke spilling from his nostrils, and Obi-Wan was nowhere in sight. 

He shouted something wordless, threw himself away from Rex and hurled himself over the fence, drawing his officer’s sword as Cody continued to thunder around the churning paddock, clods of earth flying. Alwin was there, Anakin could see, as he rushed on amid the noise of other dragons in the covert starting to screech and call with alarm; the huge groundsman was standing his ground in between Cody’s massive claws, battering at anywhere on the dragon he could reach with a cannonball, which must have been laying close by, in between his enormous hands. It wasn’t enough, though, and Anakin was suddenly glad, as he slashed out blindly with his sword at one of Cody’s madly-flapping wings, that the bellow that erupted suddenly behind him was heralding Rex’s arrival. 

“ _Enough,_ brother!” the great white-blue dragon snarled, and he went crashing into Cody’s side; just like that, the air suddenly cleared, and Anakin staggered as the two dragons went barreling and tumbling over each other, teeth and claws murderously at work, smashing the nearby storage hut housing Cody’s harness and armaments to pieces in their scramble. 

“Sir!” Alwin called. “Help me here!” 

Anakin turned, stumbled forward – in a deep impression in the earth where one of Cody’s hands had been, Obi-Wan was lying motionless, his coat torn and his own sword snapped in two at his side. One of his arms was clearly broken, lying at a sickening angle, and a mess of blood from what looked like the deep bites of razor-sharp teeth. 

“This is impossible,” Anakin breathed, horrified enough that he was numb to the sight and sound of Rex, panting and snarling, pinning Cody to the ground with a cruel claw on the sensitive membrane of his brother dragon’s wing. He looked up at Alwin, who was also clearly injured, swaying, as he plunged his meaty hand into the scraps of Obi-Wan’s arm and sought to staunch the bleeding. “Cody would _never_ _–_ ”  

“He weren’t right since getting back this morning,” Alwin shouted over the din, shaking his head; by this time they were surrounded by shocked calls and the sound of running feet as the remainder of Obi-Wan’s crew and others started to gather around them, and there was the rattle and clank of chains and swords being drawn from their sheaths. “Perhaps something in France – ” 

Anakin’s heart plummeted as another echoing, outraged roar burst out from the opposite end of the covert, and a bloodcurdling scream. By the time he had lurched to his feet and raced across the breadth of the castle, it was too late – a young midwingmen, it seemed, had been the first victim of Mandalore’s identical rage, and lay wide-eyed and lifeless in the Longwing’s paddock as the dragon herself snapped and spat acid at the ragged collection of pikes and small arms her petrified groundscrew were aiming in her direction. At a distance, Padme was the only thing keeping Satine from going to her, her eyes wide and full of tears as she manhandled her former captain away. 

“Cody, too,” Anakin said, grabbing at her arm. “Something’s wrong, something’s _very_ wrong – ”  

“Silence!” came a quick, powerful roar above them, then, and when Anakin looked up he was astonished to see Yoda _flying_ above them, making quick, agile circles, his ancient face drawn into rigid lines as, behind him, Windu, Koon, and the rest of the covert’s captains made their quick and determined way out of the castle. 

“Secure every dragon, we must,” Yoda rumbled. “Or the end of our war, it might be!” 

*

**TBC**

*


	16. Chapter 16

*

It took the rest of the day to secure the covert, and several hours after that to be entirely sure of what, exactly, had happened. Cody had complained of a cold soon after landing; illnesses of any kind were rare in dragons, of course, and Alwin had thought his symptoms serious enough, or potentially serious enough, to wake Obi-Wan around ten and bring him down to the paddock. In Alwin’s calm retelling – once the big man had had his various gashes and bruises tended to and he’d been sat down with a double rum ration in the castle – Cody had been immediately hostile towards both his groundsman and his captain, an unimaginable thing, and the attack had come without warning, so quickly that Captain Kenobi had had little time to defend himself.

The story was much the same with Mandalore, and Yoda’s concern was such that his subsequent orders were swift and harsh – every dragon in the covert was to be restrained until further notice and carefully watched, as well as kept as far away from each other as possible to keep the mysterious illness from spreading further. Even Anakin, normally so cautious and defensive of each and every covert dragon’s rights, couldn’t deny that this seemed the safest course of action; the overwhelming shock of a dragon turning on its captain, and particularly these dragons on these captains, was such that Rex, too, though he was clearly unhappy about it, submitted to his isolation with little complaint.

“It won’t last long, I’m sure,” Anakin said unhappily, as his crew went quietly and nervously about the business of carefully fitting the fetters around Rex’s clawed feet, and one great ring around his neck (these accoutrements were so rare, in fact, that the castle’s blacksmiths were working at a hugely rushed pace to turn out more of them). “I’m sorry, my friend.”

“I do not like it, it’s true,” Rex sniffed, settling gingerly on his side. “I’d rather be helping you discover the source of this treachery.”

“I know.”

“I would never hurt you, Anakin,” Rex continued, quieter, though then his head lowered, and he sent a mournful howl of sorts off in the direction of Cody’s destroyed paddock. “I _would_ not.”

“I know that too – I promise,” Anakin sighed, and, damning the danger, wrapped a fierce hug around his dragon’s snout before he finally gave up and made his slow way back to the castle.

By midnight, news came up to the silently-assembled captains and lieutenants – for none of them were able to sleep – that Pontificus, too, had started to rage and writhe in his paddock, and though Windu immediately hurried out to him it quickly became clear there was little to be done but keep him locked down as he was; the groundscrew of Wilhelmus, too, started to fidget and talk among themselves at the beady, malicious look they said they could suddenly see in the Albion’s eye. It seemed only a matter of time, if the disease was this contagious, before Rex, who had wrestled Cody into submission, would succumb as well.

Through it all, Anakin and Padme spent hours sitting with Satine at Obi-Wan’s bedside; though his arm had now been set, splinted and dressed, he had not regained consciousness, and none of the physicians who had been in to see him from various crews were sure whether he might have been too badly crushed beneath Cody’s bulk to awaken anytime soon, or whether the arm might, in the end, have to be amputated.

After too few hours of sleep, and the burden of watching his friend’s pale face and shallow, strained breathing, Anakin was relieved beyond measure to be called to Admiral Yoda’s chambers, where – at the top of the castle, in a half-derelict room open to the air along one crumbling wall – the little Winchester was looking carefully out over the covert, noting every moment and shiver and wail of his stricken dragons.

“Captain Skywalker,” he said sorrowfully as Anakin stepped up beside him, rubbing the exhaustion from his eyes. “Grievously attacked, we have been.”

“Are you not worried for your own health, sir?”

“Affected only the Albions, it has,” Yoda said, nodding briefly towards the smaller paddocks around the castle which housed the covert’s complements of Winchesters and smaller courier dragons. “Targeted and careful, this weapon is. To disable our greatest assets, they desire – and succeeded, they have, with Mandalore their unfortunate dupe.”

“They wanted us to find her,” Anakin said, with a rising horror. “Damn! We brought it straight back to where it could do its greatest damage.”

“Blame yourself you should not,” Yoda said, shaking his head. “Terrible it is, but defenceless, we are not. Other dragons may be found, and these yet recover. But more information we need, and quickly.”

“Will you send out the couriers?”

“No,” the little dragon said, and then he ruffled his wings and looked sideways at Anakin with a glance which, if the captain hadn’t been so downcast, he would have sworn seemed positively sly. “You I will fly. To France, we shall go.”

Anakin stared. “You? I’m going to fly with you?”

“Deaf you clearly are not,” Yoda chuckled, and then he spread his wings further. “Of time to waste we have little, Captain Skywalker.”

Flying on Yoda’s back was far and away the strangest sensation Anakin had experienced as an aviator. He hadn’t ridden such a small dragon since, as a boy, Rex had first struggled to fly him around the covert’s fields – and the first few moments, indeed, as Yoda lurched his way up into the sky, felt uncertain enough that he thought they were both sure to drop like a stone. But Yoda’s age, as well as his strength, was deceptive: within seconds, the beat of his wings became powerful and deep, and before Anakin knew it they were well above the ground, their way lit by the setting moon.

“Return to the coast where you found Mandalore, we shall,” Yoda rumbled as they streaked on. “Sure of what you see, you must be.”

“Aye aye, sir,” Anakin said, shaking his head in disbelief, and settled quietly into the crook of Yoda’s neck for the long flight ahead of them, wrapping his arms around himself in his greatcoat to keep out as much as he could of the early morning chill at several hundred feet up.

It took more than an hour to make their way across the northern Channel, and then turn their way south; and by the time they were approaching the same northern French coast where they’d discovered Mandalore (according to some calculations Anakin had quickly made with a compass and dull pencil in a little almanac he kept stuffed in his uniform coat), they were no longer alone.

In stark contrast to the quietude Obi-Wan and Anakin had experienced when they’d arrived to rescue Satine, the region was now thick with French dragons of every kind – Flammes-de-Gloire, Chansons-de-Guerre, and Petit-Chevaliers were visible at all distances, winging their lazy, powerful way up and down the coast, their war harnesses bristling with men. Only Yoda’s tiny stature compared to their great bulk – and, Anakin soon realized, the translucent green-blue of his scales, which kept them somewhat camouflaged against the sluggy seawater below them – kept them from being spotted as Yoda skimmed his way closer to land at a low altitude, mere metres above the waves.

And when they lifted briefly above the breakers at the same beach where Cody had nested while waiting for their return from the camp, Anakin could only gasp at the sight laid out before them: invisible in the dark just nights before, the immense, sprawling camp of infantry soldiers was now easy to see, stretching out over what must have been several miles of muddy fields. And in their midst were yet more dragons – the biggest of the French breeds, the Grands Chevaliers, were sitting snarling as men in uniform crawled over them, quickly and nervously loading themselves into packed canvas shelters all over the dragons’ backs, as though they were nothing more than carracks.

“Good God,” Anakin gasped, and Yoda, humming, seemed to think the same; the Admiral immediately executed a quick, spinning turn, and, beating his wings fiercely out of his previous glide, started to power them both back towards England.

“Clear their intentions are, now,” the Admiral sighed. “Soon, the invasion will be upon us.”

*

**TBC**

*


	17. Chapter 17

*

The next week at the covert was grey with clouds and rain, quiet, tense, and draining in a way Anakin never wanted to experience again. As the days went by, Obi-Wan still did not wake, and indeed seemed to be slipping further away from them; Padme and Naboo flew patrols above the covert on an almost hourly basis to be sure they were not entirely defenceless were an attack to come, but on her own, Anakin knew, Padme would be able to do little against a fleet of French dragons. In the meantime, the French disease spread further despite all their care, until Rex was the sole Albion that remained, bafflingly, unaffected. On the one hand, this was an immense relief to Anakin himself, as it meant he was the only Albion captain able to stay in his dragon’s presence, and have the benefit of his companionship; on the other hand, it only made the dreadful weight of expectation that Rex’s mind would give in that much harder to bear.

“Oh, I do wish I could fly,” Rex said on the fifth day since Anakin and Yoda’s return, looking impatiently up at the sky. “Does Admiral Yoda have any clear stratagem yet for when the invasion begins?”

“We’re calling up any able-bodied dragon that has been in the breeding grounds,” Anakin said, with a helpless shrug; he, too, was feeling impatient and prickly, wanting more than anything else to be aloft and defending England. “Our only hope of destroying the French battalions would be to successfully attack the troop-carriers themselves – burn the ships and scatter the Grand Chevaliers. But you can bet the rest of their aerial corps will be making sure we never get close, even if we have enough dragons scraped together for a real attack.”

“I’d like to see them stop _me,_ ” Rex growled, with fire in his eyes; Anakin was too tired to flinch and be worried whether this was a sign of some onrushing madness, and merely accepted with a pat and a sigh Rex’s subsequent snort of apology and his clumsy, affectionate nuzzle of his snout at Anakin’s shoulder.

“Anakin!” It was Padme running towards him, with a cautious smile on her face – she was spattered with mud and bright-cheeked from what must have been a patrol very recently completed. “Come see, hurry!”

She grabbed his hand and squeezed it hard as he followed her down the well-worn paths of the covert towards – Cody’s paddock, he saw suddenly, and his heart leapt into his throat. Alwin met them at the gate, still looking wary, but he merely pointed over the fence as they arrived, at where Cody, who had still been recovering from the wounds Rex had inflicted on him in the first throes of his madness, was sleepily turning in circles, his eyes heavy-lidded as his head snaked around on his neck.

“Goodness me,” Cody said, thickly. “I am exceptionally hungry.”

“Constantinus,” Alwin called, and Cody turned towards them, obviously confused. The big golden dragon stopped, then, and looked at them carefully, his big eyes slowly blinking further open.

“You all look very strange,” he rumbled, slowly. “Has something happened?”

When Alwin told him what he had done, Cody’s first reaction was to stand stock-still. But then he started leaking steam, and, bewildered, to pull at his bonds; Alwin looked hard at Anakin, and at Skywalker’s answering nod, he and his crew quickly set to the task of unscrewing and snapping the links of severe chain, and, with a mournful, frantic howl, Cody flapped stiffly up off the ground and swooped towards the castle, where, clinging to parapets, he began to poke his long head into various windows, searching for his captain. By the time Anakin and Padme had made their way back to Obi-Wan’s side, it was to the sight of Satine standing at the sill and talking to the dragon in gentle, soothing, exhausted tones as Obi-Wan, still so silent, lay insensible of Cody’s sorrow.

But this was, at least, the start of some sort of recovery, and the mood in the covert instantly began to lift as a result. With the threat of invasion looming, there was of course plenty for the aviator crews to be doing; now, with the possibility that they might indeed have dragons to fly, their pace of work increased tremendously as they repaired and readied harnesses, fettled weapons, and stocked the castle grounds with enough livestock to supply the fleet with fresh meat for weeks if necessary.

On the sixth morning, with news coming from the small courier dragons that it was the weather, of all things, which had saved them, with Napoleon’s army encountering difficulties with storms in the Channel that had delayed the invasion’s beginning – a stroke of unbelievable luck – Mandalore, too, began to recover, though after her previous ordeal she had been left exceptionally weak. Mere hours later Pontificus, too, started to regain his wits and ate his way rapidly through an entire herd of cattle; hopes were high, suddenly, for the recovery of the rest of the Corps even as more dragons began to arrive from the east, from distant coverts in Wales and Ireland where dragons thought too old to fight were sent to breed. By the seventh morning, as a beautiful day dawned – surely the invasion, now, could not be stopped by weather nor the British navy – the covert was a veritable cacophony of dragons resting and practicing rusty formation flying, and then, in the words of a breathless messenger who came to fetch Anakin and Padme at their paddocks, and the happy roar that echoed down from the castle, came the best news of all.

Obi-Wan looked exhausted, to be sure, but just to see him awake and gingerly making his way to the window to speak to Cody with Satine’s help was a blessing; the fever that had made the covert’s doctors fear he would lose his arm had broken, and as he turned to greet Anakin there was something of his old humor about him even in his chalk-white face.

“Dear me, Captain Skywalker,” he rasped, as Padme took her turn to throw herself into his good arm. “What trouble have you gotten us into this time?”

There was, as expected, no time to lose. Within an hour of Obi-Wan’s insisting that he could leave his room and prepare his crew as well as anyone, Yoda’s order to take flight came scorching through the covert, and Anakin, happy beyond belief and practically shaking with the adrenaline of incipient battle, was finally able to order his crew to release Rex from his fetters and replace them with his war harness. Rex’s joy at being freed was unrestrained; it took several minutes, in fact, to persuade him onto the ground and to stop spitting fire for long enough to actually get ready for battle.

In the meantime, Anakin calmed himself enough to make the farewells he knew he had to make. Satine, who would be in command at the castle while Yoda himself led the fleet, was easy – she knew what he was, and vice versa, and what they were to each other was just distant enough to be called respect, and not love. She expected him to do his duty, and so sent him on his way with a firm handshake and a distracted smile.

Obi-Wan was still being kept upright by Alwin when Anakin came to Cody’s paddock, but, though battered and bruised, dragon and captain alike seemed more than fit for battle, and Obi-Wan’s uninjured hand was firm at the back of Anakin’s neck as they embraced.

“Don’t break the other one,” Anakin muttered fiercely. “I expect you back in one piece.”

“We’ll do our best, I’m sure,” Obi-Wan laughed; Anakin stayed just long enough to see Kenobi’s crew enthusiastically hauling their invalided captain up Cody’s side in a complicated-looking rope contraption, singing lustily all the way, before he made his way over to the next paddock of Kenobi’s formation.

Padme would be flying in a wing with Cody and Pontificus, and her crew and dragon were as spick-and-span as ever, as she was herself. They were far beyond the boundaries of personal modesty, of course – but Anakin was still pleasantly surprised, as, he could tell, were some of her crew, when she stepped into his arms and pressed a lingering kiss to his lips before turning away again, with her eyes shining. She never looked, Anakin thought wonderingly, quite so dignified, nor so strong, as when she was standing on Naboo’s neck, looking up towards the skies – a born flier, and destined always to remain so if he had anything to say about it.

_Speaking of which…_

His way back to Rex was quick, as even on the choked paths of the covert the seething groundscrews made way for him and his flashing uniform. They were to be some of the last aloft, with their attack wing of Albions and Regal Coppers waiting above; Anakin put a foot into the crook of Rex’s knee, grabbed upwards for a rope, swung himself further and further upwards until he was sitting in his usual place in between his dragon’s shoulders, the remnants of his crew either scrambling aboard or standing back to survey their work, stepping well clear of the reach of Rex’s wings.

“Are you ready, old friend?” he called.

“For England?” Rex asked, already crouching and his tail lashing back and forth, speaking through a massive, toothy grin. “Always!”

And they flew.

*

**TBC**

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nearly there!


	18. Chapter 18

*

_Seven years later, summer (southern winter), 1820; Island of St. Helena_

Anakin had been kept waiting several hours now, and the chill in the room where he had been left to sit alone was becoming pronounced. He walked up and down for a while, tapping his cane; he looked at himself in a nearby mirror hung, no doubt, for the exact use he was putting it to, to make sure he still looked presentable. From the small window, in the distance, he could see Rex peacefully snoring at the makeshift landing field that had been constructed for them out of a grove of ebony trees; the dragon had more than earned his rest, having had to hop his way down the coast of Africa in a series of shorter flights and take advantage of a passing dragon transport in order to handle the near-two thousand kilometer flight west to St. Helena.

Judging by the time it was taking to secure his audience, Anakin rather thought he would have plenty of time to regain his strength. It was evening before, finally, the door to the room opened for the first time since Anakin had been ushered into it that morning, and a small, elderly man walked calmly in to greet him.

“Captain,” the man said ingratiatingly, echoing the bow of Anakin’s head. “I sincerely apologize for your trouble. I regret that _l’Empereur_ has taken ill, and is not likely to be able to receive visitors for some time.”

“Oh,” Anakin said, frowning. “How long? It has taken nearly a month for us to fly here, sir. We can afford a few days, at least, of recuperation before departing again.”

“I am sorry, sir, but – the circumstances…”

Anakin sniffed, putting on more of a show of annoyance than he really felt; the invitation, after all, to meet the defeated Bonaparte had been more than a small surprise, greeted with suspicion from all quarters when it made its way to England, and despite the small font of pride that had started up at the idea of a former cabin boy from the East End might be requested to entertain a man who had, at least, _called_ himself an Emperor had been flattering. And so he had taken his month, said goodbye to Padme and Leia and Luke for a little while, and flown south, just him and Rex – only to find that he was relieved, in the end, not to have to come face to face with an enemy so thoroughly vanquished.

There was only this old man with him, now, apparently a member of the Emperor’s most loyal retinue (he had to be, to have chosen to share in his exile), who had bright blue eyes and a most penetrating gaze. Anakin smiled tightly, and held out his left hand for the man to shake goodbye – at the quizzical glance he received in response, his smile only grew wider at the prospect of claiming a little piece of revenge.

“You will forgive me, sir – I lost my right arm at the Battle of the Channel. A close-fought thing, but thankfully the rest of me survived intact.”

“Of course,” the man murmured respectfully, his eyes immediately lowering to where Anakin’s skillfully-carved, gloved false hand protruded from his right cuff. “I have heard so much about you over the years, and expected to see you in uniform.”

“News no doubt travels more slowly here. I resigned my commission soon after Waterloo.”

“I am sorry to hear it.”

“I do not share that sentiment.”

“No?” The man was smiling now, with naked calculation in his eyes. It was not difficult to see how close he must have been, and how useful, to Bonaparte. “You are not a believer in war, monsieur?”

“Not if it is not necessary, no. My wife and I are quite contented with the pleasures of civilian life.”

“Your health, sir,” the man said kindly, and once again, Anakin accepted his handshake. “And if war should once again break out in Europe – what then?”

Anakin laughed, but with little mirth. “You speak as if you consider it an inevitability, sir.”

“No doubt it is.”

“Monsieur Bonaparte escaped once already, sir. It will not happen again,” Anakin said, lowering his voice to a flat, stern tone of denial.

To his credit, given his obvious loyalty, the Frenchman did not flinch – almost as though he did, indeed, expect Bonaparte to come back to Europe again; or, strangely enough, as if he himself expected to lead a new army. “We shall see, I am sure.”

He bowed, and Anakin returned it – a wrinkled hand gestured respectfully to the door, and Anakin, with a sigh which hopefully displayed his irritation, started to take his leave. It was only when he was halfway out onto the portico beyond, with his frock coat straightened and his hat on his head, that he turned back.

“I apologize – my manners have never been what they should be. Your name?”

“Palpatine, sir,” the old man said, gently. His smile was more of a grimace, and made Anakin more uneasy than he had felt in years.

“Your servant,” Anakin mumbled, and hurried quickly away.

Rex was not best pleased at the idea of taking off so soon after so long a journey, and so Anakin granted him the respite of two days’ rest on St. Helena, which went quickly in the mild winter sun and cool breezes of the island. Of the rest of their return journey, little needed to be dwelled upon, as, day by day, they made their way up the coast to the Canary Islands and through the tangle of trade wings around Cape Nao; it was only once they landed on Gibraltar, only a few days from Britain across friendly waters, than Anakin started to feel the excitement of once again being at home.

And so it was, on a pleasantly warm and sunny day, that England’s coast came into view; and, of course, this being England, their presence did not long go unnoticed. Rex roared with tired pleasure when he recognized the patrolling dragon that was winging its way towards them: by the time Cody came up beside them, his crew was gathered along his left wing, shouting their cheerful greetings across, and the former Captain Skywalker couldn’t help but wave and laugh back.

“Welcome home, Mr. Skywalker,” Obi-Wan called – he was in his customary place at Cody’s shoulder, his uniform bright and neat as ever. “Did you have a pleasant journey?”

“He wouldn’t see me,” Anakin shouted back, and there was a collective groan from the crew, which fortunately dissolved into laughter as he continued – “He fell ill instantly on being on the same island with the Hero of the Channel!”

“Modest as ever,” Obi-Wan laughed, shaking his head.

Anakin squinted, and then pointed across to Cody over the beating of Rex’s wings. “Midwingman Kenobi!”

“Aye, sir!”

The boy was still small, but unmistakable – as blond as his mother, and unfortunately as much a stickler for the rules as his father. He was strong, though, and had a quick mind, and at seven years old, had already developed such a fine sense of balance on dragonback, having practically grown up there, that it was highly amusing to see him attempting (and often failing) to walk in a straight line on land.

“Aren’t you supposed to be flying with the Admiral?”

“Mother is lying-in,” the little Kenobi retorted, and quickly blushed at the snickering of the men (some of whom were already under his command) at his lapse in discipline. “She will be glad to hear good news of you, sir.”

“Send her my best,” Anakin called, with a nod to Obi-Wan, as the captain put a hand on his son’s shoulder and ushered him back down Cody’s neck. “When are you going to retire, old man?”

“When you agree to come back and keep the Albions in line!” Obi-Wan said, and with that, and a final snort of nostalgic companionship, Rex and Cody broke apart and started to wheel away from each other.

“ _Get yourself back to Devon, Mr. Skywalker!_ ” came the final fond shout; with a grin, Anakin reached down to pat a happily-humming Rex, who had suddenly regained a new strength in the flap of his wings, and – already thinking of the chaos that would be unleashed when he told the children that they were soon to welcome a new little cousin, and of Padme’s utter elegance in their country set, and of the farm where Rex was so content – flew home.

*

**FIN**

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There the fic ends! I'm only realizing now that it hadn't made it clear this would be the last chapter - dang AO3 formatting. I'm very aware that it could have ended differently or gone on for much longer, but here is where it'll remain for the moment. Feel free to drop by [the tag for this fic on my blog](http://commonplacecaz.tumblr.com/tagged/jedi+dragons), where you'll find quite a bit of fanart for it! And thank you.


	19. Chapter 19

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In the course of writing this fic I've been incredibly lucky to have several people sketch things for it, and I thought I'd share some of that with you (with the artist's permission, of course)! 

Here are a set of fantastic concept designs for Cody, Rex, Mandalore, and Maul by [qwertyuiop678](http://qwertyuiop678.tumblr.com/). 

**Click for full-size**

[ ](http://i.imgur.com/dusXch9.png)

[ ](http://i.imgur.com/vS60Fod.png)

[ ](http://i.imgur.com/tlPcpvJ.png)

[ ](http://i.imgur.com/7xmjtRH.png)

For more sketches by qwertyuiop678 - and by [kenobrea](http://kenobrea.tumblr.com/), [dyingsighs](http://dyingsighs.tumblr.com/), [1-purple-lightsaber](http://1-purple-lightsaber.tumblr.com/), and [poisonouschicken](http://poisonouschicken.tumblr.com/) \- you can head to the ['#jedi dragons' tag on my blog](http://akathecentimetre.tumblr.com/tagged/jedi+dragons).

Thanks again!

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